#10,671
Hofuf – which saw a large hospital acquired MERS outbreak earlier this year (April-July) – reported two `primary’ (community acquired, unknown origin) MERS cases about two weeks ago, and over the past 10 days has reported five hospital acquired cases (4 patients, 1 nurse) as well.
Today’s case adds yet another HCW, reportedly a 28 y.o. female expat in critical condition.
Although we rarely get an explanation from the MOH, it isn’t unusual to see cases announced that are already well advanced into their illness, sometimes even reported posthumously.
Whether this speaks to the effectiveness of their surveillance and testing, or to the timeliness of their public reporting of cases, isn’t clear.
The MOH also announces a death of a 78. y.o. male in Hofuf, whose age doesn’t exactly match any of the recently announced cases. We saw a 75 y.o. hospital patient announced on October 22nd, and a 76 y.o. `primary’ case from October 18th, but we’ll have to wait for a WHO report to figure exactly which patient this is.
