Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory is developing diagnostic tests for the new coronavirus infection that has sickened at least 40 people worldwide and caused at least 20 deaths.

The Winnipeg lab obtained a live sample of the novel coronavirus from Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on May 4.

The virus strain is the human beta-coronavirus EMC (HCoV-EMC), a spokesperson for the agency said in an email.

The lab's research priorities for the virus include:

Doctors and researchers want to develop antibody tests to help with diagnosis.

Provincial public health laboratories can also detect the coronavirus using diagnostic tests that the national lab produced using the genetic sequence data of the new virus.

The virus first appeared last year in the Middle East and travellers have brought it to France, Britain and Germany.

"The Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia has informed WHO of an additional two laboratory-confirmed cases with infection of the novel coronavirus," the UN health agency said in a statement Wednesday.

It is the first time that health-care workers have been confirmed with the infection from exposure to patients, Gregory Hartl, head of public relations and social media for WHO, said in an email.

Hartl said he did not know what kind of health-care workers they were.

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New coronavirus tested at Canada's national lab