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Those with good memories will recall that in mid-April we learned of a MERS infection in Yemen (see Yemen Reports 1st MERS-CoV Case), that of an aircraft engineer. Today the World Health Organization has published a detailed account of this fatal case.
Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) – update
Disease Outbreak News
7 May 2014 - On 15 April 2014, the IHR National Focal Point of Yemen notified WHO of a laboratory confirmed case of MERS-CoV in a 44 year-old male residing in Shibam. The patient was diagnosed as having hepatitis B and is reported to have developed symptoms on 17 March 2014, including fever, productive cough, chills, headache, muscle aches, and shortness of breath. He was admitted to hospital on 22 March 2014 in Hadramoot Governorate, and subsequently transferred on 29 March 2014 to an intensive-care unit of a private hospital in Sanaa. He was intubated, developed renal failure, and died on 31 March 2014.
Prior to the patient's decline and subsequent death, on 31 March 2014 oropharyngeal specimens were collected from the patient and tested positive on 2 April 2014. On 24 April 2014, the specimens were sent to the United States’ Naval Medical Research Unit-3 (NAMRU-3) for external confirmation and tested positive on 5 May 2014. Oropharyngeal specimens collected from 12 contacts of the patient tested negative at NAMRU-3.
The patient was an aircraft maintenance engineer with contact among passengers at the airport where he was working. He had no history of travel during the last month of his illness and no known contact with a confirmed case. He is reported to have visited a camel farm on a weekly basis and drank fresh raw camel milk.
