UAE’s Proximity to Saudi Arabia
# 7475
Overnight the Arabic press has reported that an 82 year-old cancer patient from the UAE has been diagnosed with the emerging MERS coronavirus infection at an Abu Dhabi hospital.
Unknown at this time are epidemiological details like the onset date, date of lab confirmation, the patient’s recent travel history and or animal exposures, possible hospital exposures, and any details on contact tracing or testing.
While short on details, these media reports (such as the one below from Gulf News) are long on reassurances.
Emirati man diagnosed with Sars-like virus
MOH said that WHO confirmed that the virus is not a concern for public health at the moment
Published: 00:03 July 12, 2013
Abu Dhabi : An 82-year-old UAE national has been diagnosed with novel Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in one of the hospitals in Abu Dhabi. The patient is male with multiple myeloma and is currently admitted in the ICU.
<SNIP>
This case represents the first diagnosed case of the disease within UAE.
MOH added that WHO confirmed that the virus is not a concern for public health at the moment, and that the current situation does not require a travel ban to any country in the world, nor screenings at different ports, nor any restrictions on trade.
The ministry reassures everyone that detected cases globally continue to be very low compared to other types of flu. The Ministry confirms that the situation does not call for concern and that it is monitoring the situation closely to ensure the health and safety of everyone.
In addition to dismissively characterizing MERS-CoV as `a type of flu’, press reports are portraying this as the first MERS diagnosis in the UAE (see also Al Arabiya report UAE announces first case of MERS coronavirus infection).
Technically true, although this ignores that fact that at least two others from the UAE have been diagnosed with the virus within days of leaving the country.
- In March of this year a 73 year old man was treated at an Abu Dhabi hospital, and was then transferred by air ambulance to Germany, where he was then diagnosed with MERS-CoV (see Germany Reporting 17th NCoV Case).
- In April, a man returning from a visit to the UAE was hospitalized in France with the virus (see France: Imported Case Of nCoV From The UAE).
Both of these patients subsequently died.
Unknowns at this time include the source of this virus, how it is jumping into the human population, how well it is (or isn’t) transmitting in the community, its true attack rate (including asymptomatic or subclinical infections), and why the patient profile appears skewed towards elderly men with comorbidities.
While we’ve not seen any evidence of sustained community transmission of the MERS coronavirus, concerns are such that this week the World Health organization convened an emergency meeting of International experts to discuss the MERS-CoV threat.
This group will reconvene next Wednesday (see WHO Statement On Today’s MERS-CoV Meeting), and we should see some kind of consensus of the threat released.
With so many unknowns - and with Ramadan now underway and millions of religious pilgrims expected to visit the Arabian peninsula over the next few months - public health officials around the world are gearing up in case they are called upon to deal with the spread of this virus.
Some recent blogs on these activities include:
MMWR: MERS-CoV Update
NIOSH Webinar: MERS-CoV Infection Prevention & Control
MERS: Singapore MOH Puts Quarantine Chalets On Standby
CDC: Interim Infection Control Guidelines For MERS-CoV
