The MERS Virus Thread

SAUDI ARABIA REPORTS 2 MORE DEATHS FROM MERS VIRUS

Saudi Arabia's health ministry says two more patients who contracted a potentially fatal Middle East virus related to SARS have died as the kingdom detected 17 new cases of the disease.

The ministry said on Tuesday that a chronically ill 73-year-old Saudi man died in Riyadh. The other victim, a 54-year-old Saudi man, died in Jiddah.

The deaths bring to at least 81 the number who died in the kingdom since September 2012. The 17 new cases of the virus were detected in four cities, bringing to 261 the number of people infected.

On Monday, King Abdullah sacked the country's health minister without giving a reason.

The kingdom is scrambling to contain the spread of the coronavirus related to SARS known as the Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS.


Source : Sapa-AP /ma
Date : 22 Apr 2014 08:45
 
People really need to read up a bit before posting. It may not have the death toll of aids or malaria but I am fairly sure they don't have the potential to suddenly kill off 1/2 of the population of the earth.

Our population has spiraled out of control, as more of out top disease fighting agents are being massively overused and abused. We make our selves vulnerable to a super virus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics

It is only a matter of time till we get our next epidemic, as we spend more on research and development disease just mutates to find ways to live.

As they say Life finds a way...
 
bgotapen said:
People really need to read up a bit before posting. It may not have the death toll of aids or malaria but I am fairly sure they don't have the potential to suddenly kill off 1/2 of the population of the earth.

Our population has spiraled out of control, as more of out top disease fighting agents are being massively overused and abused. We make our selves vulnerable to a super virus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
Click to expand...

Antibiotic resistance and/or over use gives rise to new virus strains? How?

or do you mean that drugs (anti-virals) like Tamiflu are overprescribed? They may very well be, Tamilflu is not very effective against influenza, but that's not gonna give you a new virus.

Also I don't see what's so "out of control" about "our" population. I guess one can subjectively call anything "out of control".
 
DEATH TOLL FROM MERS VIRUS PASSES 100 IN SAUDI ARABIA

The number of deaths from the MERS coronavirus in Saudi Arabia has reached 102, the Ministry of Health reported, while the World Health Organization said Monday it was planning to send a new delegation of medical experts to the kingdom.

The ministry also said it was setting up a special medical advisory board to help deal with the virus, which has begun to spread faster in recent weeks.

Saudi Arabia recorded 339 cases of the virus. Infections have also been recorded in several Middle Eastern countries, including most recently Egypt, where a traveler returning from the kingdom became ill.

Tarik Jasarevic with the WHO in Geneva told dpa that a global medical delegation could arrive in Saudi Arabia as early as this week.

"At this stage we need to find answers. We still don't know enough," Jasarevic said.

While it is too early to reach conclusion, experts believe the virus, first reported in 2012, began in animals and is spreading to humans.

"We cannot still be 100 per cent sure that camels are the primary source, but is likely, because we found the virus in camels, almost the same as the ones in humans," Jasarevic explained.

"The key point is to figure out how it transfers from camels to humans, and this we still don't know." Doctors have noted that secondary human-to-human transmissions appear to have less severe symptoms.

"We need to be able to analyze this over a longer period. Whatever we say now, may turn out the answer is something else," said Jasarevic Symptoms of the MERS virus include fever, pneumonia and kidney failure.

The Saudi government last week fired its health minister and appointed an acting official, without giving a specific reason.


Source : Sapa-dpa /ns
Date : 28 Apr 2014 14:22
 
US HAS FIRST CASE OF MIDDLE EAST RESPIRATORY VIRUS

American health authorities announced Friday the first US case of a dangerous respiratory virus that is believed to have originated from camels in the Middle East.

The first US case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection was detected in a health care provider who had recently traveled to Saudi Arabia, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

"While centered in the Arabian peninsula, MERS is now in our heartland," said Anne Schuchat, director of CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

The patient is being cared for in an Indiana hospital and is "isolated in stable condition," she told reporters.

It was on April 27, after traveling to Saudi Arabia, London and Chicago, that the patient began to experience shortness of breath, coughing and fever.

Officials declined to confirm how the patient became infected, or how many people came in contact with the patient, whose gender was not disclosed.

According to official tallies, 401 people in 12 countries have been confirmed to have MERS-CoV, and 93 have died.

Schuchat said there was a low risk of MERS spreading to the general public, but added that the situation was considered "fluid."

She said the CDC is not recommending that people change their travel plans.


Source : Sapa-AFP /th
Date : 02 May 2014 21:39
 
chris2.0 said:
:(

And just got a visa approved for my mum to visit her new grandkid here in Saudi...
Click to expand...

CDC not recommending changing travel plans. If your mom is on the elderly side, maybe just take into consideration she could be a bit more vulnerable.
 
MERS DEATH TOLL IN SAUDI REACHES 111

Saudi health authorities announced Saturday two new deaths from the MERS coronavirus, raising to 111 the number of fatalities since the disease appeared in the kingdom in September 2012.

A 25-year-old man has died in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah and a woman of 69, who suffered from tuberculosis and anaemia, died in Mecca, also in western Saudi Arabia, the health ministry said.

It later said the death toll has now climbed to 111, revising its earlier figure of 109 deaths.

At the same time, 35 new cases of the severe respiratory disease have been recorded, raising the number infected in Saudi Arabia over the past two years to 396, the world's highest tally.

American health officials on Friday said the first case of MERS has been confirmed in the United States.

The person infected with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a health care provider who had travelled to Riyadh for work, they said.

Last week, Egypt recorded its first infection after a person who arrived from Saudi Arabia tested positive.

Public concern in Saudi Arabia over the spread of MERS has mounted after the resignation of at least four doctors at Jeddah's King Fahd Hospital who refused to treat patients for fear of infection.

MERS is considered a deadlier but less-transmissible cousin of the SARS virus that erupted in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, nine percent of whom died.

There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments for MERS, a disease with a mortality rate of more than 40 percent that experts are still struggling to understand.

Some research has suggested that camels are a likely source of the virus.


Source : Sapa-AFP /ns
Date : 03 May 2014 18:08
 
Garyvdh said:
Some research has suggested that camels are a likely source of the virus.


Source : Sapa-AFP /ns
Date : 03 May 2014 18:08
Click to expand...

MERS belongs to the coronavirus family that includes the common cold and SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which caused some 800 deaths globally in 2003.

The MERS virus has been found in camels, but officials don't know how it is spreading to humans. It can spread from person to person, but officials believe that happens only after close contact. Not all those exposed to the virus become ill.

But it appears to be unusually lethal — by some estimates, it has killed nearly a third of the people it sickened. That's a far higher percentage than seasonal flu or other routine infections. But it is not as contagious as flu, measles or other diseases. There is no vaccine or cure and there's specific treatment except to relieve symptoms.

...

There's been a recent surge in MERS illnesses in Saudi Arabia; cases have tended to increase in the spring. Experts think the uptick may partly be due to more and better surveillance. Columbia's Lipkin has an additional theory — there may be more virus circulating in the spring, when camels are born.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/02/mers-us-case-cdc_n_5255299.html
Click to expand...

Researchers from Columbia University, King Saud University and the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance managed to isolate live MERS virus from two single-humped camels, known as dromedaries.

Should I be concerned about new virus?

A genetic analysis found numerous substrains in the camel viruses, including one that perfectly matches a substrain isolated from a human patient. The findings are published in mBio, the open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

The attention on camels isn't new; in February, the same group published a finding that nearly three-quarters of camels in Saudi Arabia tested positive for past exposure to the MERS coronavirus.

...

Lipkin says the virus likely spreads in a variety of ways, but he'd like to see more aggressive steps taken to prevent the possibility of people being infected by eating camel meat or drinking raw, unpasteurized camel milk -- both of which are common in Saudi Arabia.

He says the Saudis will face special concerns again this fall when millions descend on the holy cities of Mecca and Medina for the Hajj pilgrimage. As part of the ritual, animals are sacrificed, and their meat shipped all over the world to help feed the hungry.

"The butchery will begin in three or four months' time, and we have to have measures in place to ensure that the animals aren't infected," Lipkin says. For example, he says, officials could decide to forbid the slaughter of young camels for food since younger animals are more likely to carry the MERS virus.

Dr. David Swerdlow, who heads the team responsible for tracking MERS at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says the Saudi government took steps to discourage the spread of the virus during last year's Hajj, including posting warnings to discourage people older than 65, pregnant women or those who were immune-compromised from making the pilgrimage.

Health authorities have not yet decided what steps to take this year, Swerdlow says, but the United States is watching the situation closely.

"Any time you have an emerging infection that has a high case fatality rate, that's been around for over a year, that has caused illness in multiple countries, that's caused illness in travelers and health care workers, and for which there is no treatment or vaccine, we're concerned. We've been concerned for a year and a half, and we remain concerned."

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/29/health/mers-camels/
Click to expand...

The so-called Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus was first found in June 2012 in a patient from Saudi Arabia, who suffered from severe pneumonia. Since this time more than 300 persons have developed an infection, of whom about a third died. The fact that the Arabian camel is the origin of the infectious disease has been confirmed recently. The transmission pathways of the viruses, however, have not been clear until now.

Viruses in humans and camels from one region are identical

Virologists Norbert Nowotny and Jolanta Kolodziejek from the Institute of Virology are investigating the transmission pathways of the MERS coronavirus. They found that viruses from infected humans and Arabian camels from the same geographical region have nearly identical RNA sequences. "This indicates transmission between animals and man. The process is referred to as zoonosis. With this knowledge we can specifically react to the spread of the virus. Vaccinations of camels are currently being discussed. We will thus be able to halt the spread of the virus," said Nowotny.

Virus RNA differs from region to region

The scientists investigated nasal and conjunctival swabs, taken from 76 camels in Oman. In five camels they found the MERS coronavirus and compared its RNA with those of MERS coronavirus from Qatar and Egypt. The analysis showed that the viruses differ from region to region. "This means that there is no specific 'camel MERS coronavirus strain', but that one virus infects both, camels and humans," says study coordinator Norbert Nowotny.

Transmission pathway through nose and eyes

Virus levels were surprisingly high in the nasal mucosa and conjunctiva of camels. Therefore the scientists presume that the transmission pathway from animals to humans most likely occurs through these contact sites, especially through nasal discharge.

In man the virus causes severe pneumonia and renal failure while camels show no or very little symptoms (in some cases nasal discharge). So far all infections in humans have occurred in the Arabian Peninsula. However, some developed the disease after they returned to their native country, of whom eleven were from Europe. MERS coronavirus is also transmitted from one human to another, for instance in families, in the community, or through contact between patients and medical staff.

MERS and SARS coronaviruses are relatives

MERS coronavirus is closely related to SARS coronavirus. SARS originated in China and claimed 800 lives worldwide in 2002 and 2003. "While the SARS coronavirus probably crossed the species barrier only once by passing from bats to humans, we may presume that the MERS coronavirus is being constantly transmitted from camels to humans," explains Nowotny.

The fact that MERS coronaviruses infect camels was shown by Nowotny and his colleagues in an earlier study, in which the scientists detected antibodies against the virus in the animals. The current genetic analysis of MERS coronarviruses permits more exact conclusions.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140502081339.htm
Click to expand...

There is also a certain saying which remains popular among the Arabs:
The Arabs have never taken quite so condemnatory an attitude towards the practice, and indeed a popular Arab saying had it that "The pilgrimage to Mecca is not complete without copulating with the camel."[9]

http://www.wikiislam.net/wiki/Islam_and_Bestiality
Click to expand...

Read the entire wikiislam link...
 
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