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A female health worker in Saudi Arabia with MERS-CoV died over the weekend, according to a Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH) update yesterday, but the country has gone 18 days with no new cases. The woman was 42 years old and an expatriate from the city of Jeddah. A further update today shows that one patient under treatment, a 42-year-old man from Hofuf who is not a health worker, has recovered, bringing… Read More
Editor’s note: W. Ian Lipkin is John Snow professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. (CNN) — A third case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in the United States has been reported. An unidentified Illinois man was infected after having “extended face-to-face contact” with an Indiana man who was diagnosed with the… Read More
Saudi Arabia today reported seven new Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) cases, one of them fatal, as details emerged that Filipinos are among the recent deaths. Six of the new Saudi cases are from areas that have reported several recent infections, such as Jeddah (4), Medina (1), and Riyadh (1). But one of the patients is from Gonfothah, on the southwestern coast of the country, according to a statement from Saudi… Read More
The sharp rise in Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) cases and the impact of the disease are concerning, but it doesn’t meet the definition of a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today, following its emergency committee’s deliberations yesterday. Keiji Fukuda, MD, the WHO’s assistant director-general for health security and environment, said at a media telebriefing today that after the committee heard from outside… Read More
TORONTO – A doctor who travelled to Canada after having contact with Florida’s first MERS patient has tested negative for the virus, the Public Health Agency of Canada said Wednesday. The unidentified man is being asked to stay in the country for several more days until officials feel confident he isn’t infected with Middle East respiratory syndrome virus and that it is safe for him to travel. It can take as long… Read More
LONDON – The spread of a puzzling respiratory virus in the Middle East and beyond is not a global health emergency despite a recent spike in cases, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. The decision was made after a meeting of WHO’s expert group on the Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS. Since 2012, MERS has sickened more than 500 people and killed 145, mostly in the Middle East. The majority of… Read More
The United States has reported its first case of a new virus found in the Middle East, in a traveler from the region, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. The patient, a healthcare worker who traveled from Saudi Arabia to Indiana, is being kept isolated in an Indiana hospital after being diagnosed with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus, the CDC says. “In 2014 these new diseases are just a… Read More
Camels are almost certainly the source of the MERS virus that is on the upswing again across the Middle East, researchers reported on Tuesday. A countrywide survey of camels shows many, if not most, are infected with a strain genetically almost identical to the strain that’s infecting people, a team at Columbia University, King Saud University, and the EcoHealth Alliance reported. The World Health Organization has expressed alarm about the increase in… Read More
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) reported a total of 21 more MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) cases today, while the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) predicted that more exported cases are likely to crop up in Europe. In addition, in the first word of any genetic sequencing results for recent MERS-CoV isolates, a news report in Science said that preliminary findings from analysis of one… Read More
Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified natural human antibodies against the virus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a step toward developing treatments for the newly emerging and often-fatal disease. Currently there is no vaccine or antiviral treatment for MERS, a severe respiratory disease with a mortality rate of more than 40 percent that was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. In laboratory studies reported in the Proceedings of… Read More
THE OUTBREAK 