Italy reports two more MERS coronavirus cases, brings global total to 53

The Ministry of Health in Italy, through the European Union’s Early Warning Response System has notified WHO of an additional two laboratory-confirmed cases with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in the country.

Image/CIA

This follows a Friday report of a 45-year-old man, an Italian citizen of a foreign nationality,  who traveled to Jordan and stayed for 40 days, who was laboratory-confirmed positive for the new virus.

The two new cases are close contacts of the above case. The first patient is a two-year-old girl and the second patient is a 42-year-old woman. They are in stable condition.

Globally, from September 2012 to date, WHO has been informed of a total of 53 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with MERS-CoV, including 30 deaths.

WHO has received reports of laboratory-confirmed cases originating in the following countries in the Middle East to date: Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). France, Germany, Italy,Tunisia and the United Kingdom also reported laboratory-confirmed cases; they were either transferred there for care of the disease or returned from the Middle East and subsequently became ill. In France, Italy, Tunisia and the United Kingdom, there has been limited local transmission among patients who had not been to the Middle East but had been in close contact with the laboratory-confirmed or probable cases.

MERS-CoV is different from any other coronavirus that has been previously found in people. Symptoms of MERS have included fever, cough, and shortness of breath.

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