Liverpool’s Royal Hospital is treating a man suffering from a potentially deadly virus.
Public Health England confirmed that the patient has been admitted to the city centre hospital with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, known as MERS.
MERS is among the World Health Organisation’s 10 urgent threats to humanity and kills one third of the people that it strikes.
There have been only four previously reported cases in England.
PHE are aiming to contact passengers who were on the same plane as the patient, a Middle East resident who contracted the virus before flying to the UK.
He visited a hospital in Leeds before being transferred to the Royal’s tropical and infectious diseases unit on Wednesday evening.
PHE said the patient travelled on a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight (number SV123) from Jeddah to Manchester on August 16.
Only people considered at risk have been contacted by PHE.
Dr Jenny Harries, deputy medical director at PHE, said: “It is important to emphasise that although a case has been identified, the overall risk of disease transmission to the public is very low.”
World Health Organisation statistics have found 2,229 confirmed cases of Mers in 27 countries since September 2012 and 791 associated deaths.