Middle East Respiratory System coronavirus
(Update)
Saudi Arabia has announced 13 more deaths from the MERS
coronavirus, as the World Health Organisation prepared for an emergency meeting
over worries about the spread of the disease.
The Middle East Respiratory System coronavirus has now
killed 139 people and infected 480 in the kingdom since it first appeared in
2012, accounting for the bulk of cases registered across the globe.
In its most recent tally, issued at midday on Saturday, the Saudi
health ministry said six people had died from the disease over the past 24
hours.
They were three women aged 22, 26 and 35 who died in Riyadh,
a 68-year-old woman and a 78-year-old man in the western city of Medina, and a
man in his 70s in the commercial capital Jeddah.
On Friday the ministry said three men aged 94, 51 and 42 had
died from MERS in the Jeddah region.
It added that a 74-year-old man had died in the city of
Taef, while a woman, 71, and two men aged 81 and 25 respectively, had died in
the capital Riyadh.
MERS is considered a deadlier but less-transmissible cousin
of the SARS virus that broke out in Asia in 2003, infecting 8,273 people and
killing nearly 800.
Like SARS, it appears to cause a lung infection, with
patients suffering coughing, breathing difficulties and a temperature, but MERS
differs in that it also causes rapid kidney failure.
Experts are struggling to understand the disease for which
there are currently no vaccines or antiviral treatments.
The announcement of the latest fatalities in Saudi Arabia
came the day after the WHO said it would hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday
to discuss the spread of the virus.
The UN health agency's emergency committee has already met
four times to discuss the mysterious coronavirus since it surfaced in 2012.
"The increase in the number of cases in different
countries raises a number of questions," spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told
reporters in Geneva on Friday, without giving further details of the aim of the
new talks.
MERS cases have also been reported in the United Arab
Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and even the United States, with most
involving people who had travelled to Saudi Arabia or worked there, often as
medical staff.
BSIP/UIG
As the number of people contracting the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in neighboring Saudi Arabia continues to rise, a leading virologist has reassured people that the spread of the severe, pneumonia-like disease appears to be slowing.
According to the latest update provided by Qatar’s Supreme Council of Health (SCH), there have not been any new reported cases of MERS since November of last year.
However, concern remains as summer approaches and people in Qatar travel. Saudi Arabia is a particularly popular destination during the holy month of Ramadan, which begins at the end of next month.
In recent days, Saudi health authorities have confirmed two new deaths from MERS, bringing the death toll in the kingdom to 111.
The number of recorded cases of the virus there nearly doubled last month, and some 396 people in Saudi have so far contracted MERS since it was discovered less than two years ago. The outbreak prompted the World Health Organization to send a team to Jeddah to help manage the crisis.
Meanwhile, in the last week, the US and Egypt have reported their first cases of MERS. Both patients are males who are believed to have recently traveled to Saudi.
The news has prompted Egypt’s health ministry to encourage very young and elderly citizens, as well as those with chronic conditions, to postpone pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia for the time being.
Worldwide, this is what the virus’s path looked like as of late last month:
Calm urged
But Ian M. Mackay, as associate professor from the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Center at the University of Queensland, has been charting the virus and said that MERS now appears to be spreading at a slower pace.
Ian M. Mackay
Addressing the recent outbreak in Saudi, Mackay
told Doha
News this was likely due to healthcare missteps, rather than
changes in the MERS virus:
“It looks like there is a slowing of cases right now– but
it’s early and hard to say more. We know that some of the recent MERS-CoV
sequences showed no sign of being different to those that have been among us
since at least 2012.
So the recent rise in viral detections seems to come down to
some problems with preventing infection from spreading within hospitals –
perhaps some extra testing to identify what is going on beyond the most ill
cases and perhaps there are some role for seasonal changes.”
There is no cure for MERS, which presents as a respiratory
infection and
includes
symptoms such as coughing, fever and difficulty breathing. Scientists are still
trying to learn exactly how the virus spreads.According to Mackay, most
patients appear to have been infected after coming into direct contact with an
ill person – such as a relative or healthcare worker. He added:
“From what we know right now, you can be
sitting next to someone who is not obviously sick and not acquire a MERS-CoV
infection. In humans, transmission seems to stop in most instances after just a
single transfer from a sick person to a recipient.”
Intensive tests are underway throughout the world to increase
knowledge about MERS. During his Jeddah visit, WHO team leader Dr. Jaouad
Mahjour said:
“We need to understand how people got
infected in health-care settings, and in the community; we are looking into
possible infection routes and whether the virus has changed its ability to more
easily infect people.”
Mahjour added that the key to limiting the spread of the
disease was for hospital and healthcare workers to use established infection
prevention and control methods.
The origin of MERS also remains unclear. Many experts have said that camels are the main source of the disease, but how the virus is then passed on to humans is still unestablished.
Advice
WHO advises those at high-risk of catching MERS (including people with diabetes, chronic lung disease, pre-existing renal failure, or those who are have weak immune systems) to avoid contact with camels, maintain good hand hygiene and avoid drinking raw milk or eating food that may be contaminated with animal secretions or products unless they are properly washed, peeled, or cooked.
For the general public, when visiting a farm, live animal markets or a barn, they should avoid touching sick animals and wash their hands regularly after touching all other animals – especially camels.
In Qatar, eight people have been diagnosed with MERS so far, and four of them have died. Additionally, a Qatari man diagnosed with the virus in the UK in 2012 died last July.
Anyone with questions or symptoms can call the SCH’s dedicated MERS hotline: +974-6674 0951.
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