Hong Kong ( CNN ) -- A four-year-old boy in a Hong Kong isolation ward has tested negative for a SARS-like virus that infected two people in the Middle East , the government said on Monday . The illness was instead confirmed to be an influenza infection , Hong Kong 's Centre for Health Protection said and not a case of novel coronavirus -- which belongs to the same family of viruses that caused the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ( SARS ) . The newly discovered virus killed a 60-year-old Saudi national in June and has left a 49-year-old man from Qatar who had traveled to Saudi Arabia in a critical condition in a London hospital . The boy arrived in Hong Kong from Jeddah , Saudi Arabia with his father on October 3 and was admitted to the emergency room of Ruttonjee Hospital on Sunday with a fever , cough and vomiting . He was later put in isolation at a different hospital . New SARS-like illness poses medical mystery . Hong Kong , which was at the epicenter of the 2003 SARS outbreak , takes disease control very seriously and put health workers on alert after the World Health Organization first reported the virus 's discovery on September 23 . The outbreak of SARS , which killed 299 people in Hong Kong and 800 worldwide , also dealt a severe economic blow , emptying the normally bustling city 's shopping malls , restaurants and schools . The WHO said that while from the same family , the new virus is distinct from SARS . It said it was investigating the possibility of transmission from animals but , unlike SARS , there is no evidence yet that the novel coronavirus has been transmitted from person to person . A Hong Kong University researcher , Yuen Kwok-yung said last month that the new virus is closely related to two bat viruses found a few years ago in Hong Kong , according to the South China Morning Post . SARS was though to have jumped species from the civet , a member of the cat family .
Boy tested negative for SARS - like virus that has infected two in Middle East . Five - year - old arrived in Hong Kong from Saudi Arabia with his father last week . Hong Kong was at center of the SARS outbreak .