Coronavirus – Credit CDC PHIL
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During the summer of 2012 Egyptian virologist Dr Ali Mohamed Zaki, working at the Virology Laboratory of Dr Soliman Fakeeh Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia isolated a previously unknown coronavirus from a 60-year old male patient with pneumonia and acute renal failure. That virus, we know today as MERS-CoV.
The story of his discovery, and eventual `reward’ (he was fired for going public with his discovery) was well told by Jennifer Yang in her article How medical sleuths stopped a deadly new SARS-like virus in its tracks, which exemplifies the old adage that `no good deed goes unpunished’.
Today Dr. Ian Mackay has details on some comments Dr. Zaki made in an interview on the recent behavior of the virus in Saudi Arabia, along with some comments of his own.
So, without further ado I would strongly encourage you to leave here and read:
Professor Ali Mohamed Zaki on MERS-CoV: camels a secondary concern to person-to-person spread
There have been a seemingly continual and growing stream of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) cases of late, with a particular emphasis on what seem to be increasing numbers of healthcare worker infections, a possibly younger age group and less severe disease.
Professor Ali Mohamed Zaki, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo Egypt recently spoke to this in an MBC 2 TV interview.
