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The World Health Organization announced it discovered a case of the potentially fatal Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), which infects bats, camels, and people.
The 28-year-old man tested positive for MERS-CoV in the United Arab Emirates, according to officials in the Middle Eastern country. The World Health Organization (WHO) said in a news release this week that it was notified of the case after the patient was admitted to the hospital in mid-June.
The man had “no history of direct or indirect contact with dromedaries, goats, or sheep,” it said. “All 108 identified contacts were monitored for 14 days from the last date of exposure to the MERS-CoV patient. No secondary cases have been detected to date,” the news release added.
The unidentified man was listed in critical condition and was referred to an intensive care unit in a specialized government hospital in mid-June, said WHO, adding that he was placed on “mechanical ventilation” to breathe.
“The case has no known co-morbidities, no history of contact with MERS-CoV human cases, and no recent travel outside the UAE. The patient has no known history of direct contact with animals including dromedary camels, nor consumption of their raw products,” the news release said. Arabian one-humped camels are known to have MERS-CoV as a zoonotic source of the infection.
Within the United Arab Emirates, the first case of MERS-CoV was reported in July 2013, according to WHO, which noted that about 94 cases have been confirmed with 12 deaths since then inside the country. Outside the UAE, the total number of cases reported to WHO since 2012 is about 2,605 with 936 associated deaths.
“WHO continues to monitor the epidemiological situation and conducts risk assessments based on the latest available information. WHO expects that additional cases of MERS-CoV infection will be reported from the Middle East and/or other countries where MERS-CoV is circulating in dromedaries,” the U.N. health body said.
Globally, the total number of confirmed MERS-CoV cases reported to WHO since 2012 is 2,605, including 936 associated deaths. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), meanwhile, has said that only two cases of the virus have been detected in the United States in 2014.
Symptoms
Symptoms of the virus include coughing, fever, shortness of breath, diarrhea, at sometimes, pneumonia. The virus—like COVID-19—is known to cause severe symptoms in older people or those with compromised immune systems or chronic illnesses such as cancer, lung disease, diabetes, and renal disease, officials have said.
(Epoch Times) And like COVID-19, the virus can range from “asymptomatic or mild respiratory symptoms to severe acute respiratory disease and death,” according to the WHO. “Severe illness can cause respiratory failure that requires mechanical ventilation and support in an intensive care unit resulting in high mortality,” it said.
No vaccines or specific treatments are currently available, said the WHO. “Several MERS-CoV-specific vaccines and treatments are in development,” the release added.
“Approximately 35 percent of patients with MERS-CoV have died, but this may be an overestimate of the true mortality rate, as mild cases of MERS-CoV may be missed by existing surveillance systems,” the WHO release said. “Until more is known about the disease, the case fatality rates are counted only amongst the laboratory-confirmed cases reported to WHO.”
Other Details
MERS-CoV is thought to be carried by camels and comes from the same family as the coronavirus that caused China’s deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003.
The CDC says on its website that MERS “represents a very low risk to the general public in this country” and that both cases that were detected among health care workers who worked and lived in Saudi Arabia. They had both traveled from Saudi Arabia to the U.S. at the time.
The United Arab Emirates health ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the MERS-CoV case.
The UAE, a hub for international events, is slated to host a U.N. Climate Change Conference in November and December.
Over the years, there have been sporadic outbreaks of the virus, including an incident in 2017 where 10 people contracted the illness at a Saudi hospital, according to WHO. Most of the known human-to-human transmission has occurred in health care settings, and the WHO has said hospitals and medical workers should take stringent precautions as a standard measure to stop the disease spreading.
In mid-2015, an outbreak in South Korea, started by a man who had traveled in the Gulf, caused 186 cases within two months.
Reuters contributed to this report.
