Coronavirus – Credit CDC PHIL
# 7017
While it’s true infectious diseases respect no borders, sovereign nations wield a great deal of power when it comes to divulging disease information.
As we saw with China in 2002-2003 and SARS, and Indonesia for several years with bird flu, some nations can be very `selective’ when it comes to releasing information.
International agencies, like the World Health Organization, FAO, and OIE must rely upon the relevant Ministries in member nations for timely and complete infectious disease updates.
In recent months we’ve seen a small number of novel coronavirus (NCoV) cases emanating from Saudi Arabia, and the Middle East, including a family cluster in the UK (see Eurosurveillance: H2H Transmission of NCoV In UK Family Cluster).
Of concern, the doctor - Ali Mohamed Zaki - who revealed the first case in a letter to ProMed Mail last summer (see Sometimes They Come Back) was subsequently fired.
And based on onset dates, some of the case reports coming out of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) appear to have been slow in being released.
The last case report – released March 6th – relayed information about a who had died two weeks earlier from the virus - `hospitalized on 10 February 2013 and died on 19 February 2013.’
All of which has led to some speculation that we might not be getting the full picture of what is going on with this emerging virus. Yesterday, Betsy McKay of the Wall Street Journal was interviewed in a 3 minute video, where she discusses these concerns, and the Saudi’s rejection of those claims.
Follow the link to watch the complete video:
Saudis Reject Claims of SARS-Like Virus
Saudi Arabia has rejected accusations that it is covering up details of a deadly new SARS-like virus, which has recently been shown to be capable of spreading from person to person. Betsy McKay reports.
You’ll note that the WSJ continues to use the `SARS-Like’ appellation for NCoV in their headlines (as does most of main stream media), despite calls from the WHO to use NCoV instead (see WHO: Please Don’t Call It `SARS-Like’).
Although I use NCoV in this blog, my readers are already familiar with the nomenclature. It is admittedly more difficult for mainstream headline writers to switch to a relatively new, and little known substitute.
Which explains why the term `Swine Flu’ is still sometimes used by the press, instead of the WHO recommended A(H1N1)pdm09.
Full Disclosure: I served on a Pandemic & the Media with Betsy McKay in 2009 at a CIDRAP conference in Minneapolis.
