Six additional MERS cases reported from UAE and Saudi Arabia
The World Health Organization (WHO) has been notified of an additional six confirmed cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), four from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and two from Saudi Arabia, according to a update today.
The cases in Saudi Arabia are from Asir region. The first case is a 26-year-old man who is a close contact with a previously laboratory-confirmed case and the second case is a 42-year-old woman who is a health care worker.
Both cases have mild symptoms and are not hospitalized.
The UAE cases include four health care workers from two hospitals in Abu Dhabi who took care of an earlier laboratory-confirmed patient. Of these, two cases, a 28-year-old man and 30-year-old woman, did not develop symptoms of illness. The other two cases, both women of 30 and 40 years old, had mild upper respiratory symptoms and are in stable condition.
Globally, from September 2012 to date, WHO has been informed of a total of 88 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with MERS-CoV, including 45 deaths.
This MERS update comes one day after the WHO-appointed emergency committee deemed that MERS-CoV did not meet conditions for a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).
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This thin section, negatively-stained transmission electron micrograph (TEM) revealed some of the ultrastructural morphology of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), which was formerly known as novel coronavirus. Image/Maureen Metcalfe; Azaibi Tamin
