The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that it discovered a case of the potentially fatal Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), which infects bats, camels, and people.
A 28-year-old man tested positive for MERS-CoV in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to officials in the Middle Eastern country. The WHO stated 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 patient had] no history of direct or indirect contact with dromedaries, goats, or sheep,” the release read. “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 unidentified man was listed in critical condition and was referred to an intensive care unit in a specialized government hospital in mid-June, the WHO stated, adding that he was placed on “mechanical ventilation.”
“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 the main source of zoonotic transmission of MERS-CoV.
Within the UAE, the first case of MERS-CoV was reported in July 2013, according to the WHO, which noted that about 94 cases have been confirmed with 12 deaths since then inside the country. Globally, the total number of cases reported to the 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 stated.
Symptoms
Symptoms of the virus include coughing, fever, shortness of breath, diarrhea, and pneumonia. The virus—like the one that causes COVID-19—is known to cause severe symptoms in older people and people with compromised immune systems or chronic illnesses such as cancer, lung disease, diabetes, and renal disease, officials have said.And like COVID-19, the disease 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.”
No vaccines or specific treatments are currently available, according to the WHO.
“Several MERS-CoV-specific vaccines and treatments are in development,” the release read.
Other Details
MERS-CoV comes from the same family as the coronavirus that caused China’s deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003.
The CDC states on its website that MERS “represents a very low risk to the general public in this country” and that the patients in both detected cases in 2014 were health care workers who worked and lived in Saudi Arabia. They had both traveled from Saudi Arabia to the United States.
The UAE health ministry didn’t 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 in which 10 people contracted the illness at a Saudi hospital, according to the WHO. Most of the known human-to-human transmission has occurred in health care settings, and the WHO has said that hospitals and medical workers should take stringent precautions as a standard measure to stop the spread of the disease.
In mid-2015, an outbreak in South Korea, started by a man who had traveled in the Middle East, caused 186 cases within two months.
