Saudi MOH: 1 Additional Wadi Aldwasir MERS Case

Original Map Credit Wikipedia

#13,873


Today the Saudi MOH has added the first MERS case to their Epi Week #8 list  announcing the Kingdom's 65th case of the year, bringing this month's total to 51 -  38 of which hailed from Wadi Aldwasir.

While the number of new secondary cases has slowed considerably over the past several days, the last couple of cases reported from this region have been described as Primary, with recent camel contact, suggesting the spillover event into the community continues.

The (scant) details on today's case follow:

In addition to nearly a dozen primary cases reported over the past 3 weeks  - some with camel contact, some without - there appears to have been at least 3 clusters in the Wadi Aldwasir outbreak.

• 6 cases have been listed as secondary, household contacts
• 2 cases have been listed as secondary, community-acquired
• 23 cases have been listed as secondary, healthcare-acquired.

While we've heard no new news since Friday from neighboring Oman (see OMAN: 4 New MERS Cases Reported) - which brought their recent outbreak up to 10 cases with 4 deaths - over the weekend the Omani MOH did finally post their previously tweeted 4th MERS update on their website.

Community transmission of the MERS-CoV virus has thankfully been both sporadic and limited, and so far, the virus has fallen short of producing a sustained epidemic. 

Nevertheless, the potential for the virus to evolve into a greater threat remains, and less than a year ago - in the WHO List Of Blueprint Priority Diseases- the World Health Organization designated MERS-CoV as one of 8 disease threats in need of urgent accelerated research and development.

List of Blueprint priority diseases

(SNIP)

The second annual review occurred 6-7 February, 2018. Experts consider that given their potential to cause a public health emergency and the absence of efficacious drugs and/or vaccines, there is an urgent need for accelerated research and development for*:

• Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF)
• Ebola virus disease and Marburg virus disease
• Lassa fever
• Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
• Nipah and henipaviral diseases
• Rift Valley fever (RVF)
• Zika
• Disease X

For some recent blogs on the concerns over community transmission of the MERS virus, you may wish to revisit:

J. Korean Med Sci: Atypical Presentation Of A MERS Case In A Returning Traveler From Kuwait

mBio: High Prevalence of MERS-CoV Infection in Camel Workers in Saudi Arabia

AJIC:Intermittent Positive Testing For MERS-CoV

JIDC: Atypical Presentation Of MERS-CoV In A Lebanese Patient

A Pandemic Risk Assessment Of MERS-CoV In Saudi Arabia)