Brief Report: Isolation of a novel coronavirus from a man with pneumonia in Saudi Arabia.

This paper, dated November 8, 2012, characterized the virus up to and including its genome sequence, including radiology and imaging findings, lab findings, diagnosis and management. The authors tentatively named the virus "HCoV-EMC" for Human and the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, where the lead author, Zaki, sent the virus to be sequenced. Taxonomists later renamed the virus MERS-CoV.  Available from nejm.org at this link.

Remarkably, for political reasons Zaki lost his job at a private hospital in Saudi Arabia immediately after he sent the disease sample to Rotterdam. He also had to flee the country immediately. Details of this firing were reported on FluTrackers.com at this link. Further details were reported in Nature Middle East on June 2, 2014 at this link.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)