Coronavirus – Credit CDC PHIL
# 8447
Given some of the governmental reprisals against outspoken journalists in Saudi Arabia in recent years, the media’s sudden willingness to cover the MERS-CoV outbreak at King Fahd hospital in Jeddah (see here & here) is both surprising and encouraging.
Overnight there have been well over a dozen newspaper articles in the Arabic press announcing the closure of that hospital’s Emergency Room over fears of continued transmission of the virus.
While you’ll see some variation in the details of these stories (e.g., case counts, the number of HCWs involved, and the number additional hospitals affected) – I would suggest that the real story here is the degree to which the Arabic media is covering this outbreak, and not so much the (variable & rapidly changing) numbers.
Note: While most of this morning’s reports indicate 11 recent cases in Jeddah, at least one report has bumped that number to 15 confirmed & suspected cases. Additional test results are pending.
Below you’ll find a couple of examples of today’s reportage, after which I’ll be back with a bit more.
Jeddah: 11 injured by a health practitioner "Corona" .. and the closure of emergency, King Fahd Hospital
News 24 04/08/2014
Announced a medical source at King Abdul Aziz in Jeddah on Monday evening, injuring 11 practicing healthy virus "Corona" 0.6 of them Mnomon King Fahd Hospital and two at King Abdul-Aziz, in addition to the three doctors, one of whom hypnotic specialist hospital, and the second university hospital, and the third hospital National Guard.
According to the "city", which broke the news source, the situation is hypnotic at King Abdul Aziz critical, although the hospital's management announced the alert after isolating patients and giving them antibiotics.
The same source affirmed that forced King Fahd Hospital on Monday, to close the emergency department for fear of the increasing incidence of HIV infection, and refer patients to hospitals in King Abdul Aziz and the mouth.
The Ministry of Health announced Monday evening for the registration of four new cases of "Corona" in Jeddah, including three cases of citizens works, two of them in the health sector, while it was the fourth case of a resident (33 years) He has no symptoms of the disease.
A somewhat fresher report comes from Alweeam.com, which increments the case count to 15 (confirmed & suspected).
«15» people were injured b «Corona» including doctors and nurses in Jeddah
Jeddah - Harmony - Hani Althbyta:
Sources indicated that the proportion of harmony with suspected virus Coruna in Jeddah began to rise up to nearly 15 people, including doctors, nurses, and Inpatient "of the elderly and children," the province's hospitals, while waiting for the results of all tests taken from them.
Sources reported that the symptoms started to appear on the suspected yesterday evening, helping to close the Emergency Hospital, King Fahd also indicated previously harmony.
The source said that he was stopped receiving samples of suspected disease laboratories Corona hospital in Jeddah, after all that has been transferred to Jeddah Regional Laboratory.
As I learned harmony that all of them carried out analyzes of suspected injury Corona virus has not been isolated, which may cause infection of Mkhaltin by moving them from friends and family and patients.
Sources confirmed that the harmony hospitals in the province suffer from a deficit in the number of gags for such viruses, forcing staff and inpatients on the regular use of respirators.
Two vaguely reassuring `talking points’ appear in a number of the stories printed overnight, the first being:
The hospital administration invited citizens to not rush behind the rumors, and reassure them that it is taking all measures to reduce the spread of infection by the standards of the World Health Organization, and asked patients to ensure hygiene, washing hands frequently, and reduce frequent escorts in hospital departments.
A second point somewhat disingenuously states that hospital staff have been `vaccinated’ (although, against what is not stated). There is no vaccine against the MERS coronavirus as this time. .
The hospital management has vaccinated all the employees, and provided masks and protective clothing to prevent the spread of the infection, the venues for any patient with a contagious disease.
Exactly what the real situation is in Jeddah is something that may take some time to unravel. Sharon Sanders at FluTrackers is curating a growing list of media reports on this thread, and that is probably the best place to get the latest information.
I’ll update this blog with any major developments. Stay tuned.
