WHO MERS Update - Saudi Arabia

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The World Health Organization has published a MERS update for Saudi Arabia for the month of January. Unfortunately, the cutoff date of this report only allows the inclusion of the first 3 MERS cases from the Wadi Aldwasir outbreak, which now numbers 39 cases.

Two other clusters - one in Riyadh (3 cases) and 1 in Jeddah (2 cases) are also included.

The spreadsheet only indicates the first Wadi Aldwasir case had camel contact, while the 2nd and 3rd were exposed to a MERS case.  We still don't know under what circumstance they were exposed.

Over the first 15 days of February, Saudi Arabia has reported an additional 48 cases (YTD= 62), with 35 of those from Wadi Aldwasir. This marks the biggest monthly number of cases in KSA since June of 2017 (which also saw 48 cases), and there are nearly two weeks to go in February.

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) – Saudi Arabia
Disease outbreak news
15 February 2019

From 1 January through 31 January 2019, the International Health Regulations (IHR) National Focal Point of Saudi Arabia reported fourteen additional cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection, including three deaths. Details of these cases can be found by following the link to a separate document after this paragraph.

Of the 14 cases reported in January, eight are from three separate clusters of cases. Cluster 1 involves three cases (listed as cases 1, 2 and 3) in Riyadh Province and cluster 2 involves two cases (listed as cases 4 and 5) in the city of Jeddah. Cluster 3 involves three cases (listed as cases 11, 13 and 14) in the city of Wadi Aldwaser and is currently ongoing.

More details regarding the outbreak in Wadi Aldwaser and the implementation of interventions by the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Saudi Arabia will be provided in the next update.

The link below provides details of the fourteen reported additional cases.

MERS-CoV cases reported between 1 January and 31 January 2019 xls, 118kb

From 2012 through 31 January 2019, the total number of laboratory-confirmed MERS-CoV cases reported globally to WHO under IHR (2005) is 2 298 with 811 associated deaths. The total number of deaths includes the deaths that WHO is aware of to date through follow-up with affected member states.

WHO risk assessment

Infection with MERS-CoV can cause severe disease resulting in high mortality. Humans are infected with MERS-CoV from direct or indirect contact with dromedary camels. MERS-CoV has demonstrated the ability to transmit between humans. So far, the observed non-sustained human-to-human transmission has occurred mainly in health care settings.

As of 15 February 2019, there is an ongoing outbreak of MERS in Wadi Aldwaser, which includes cases 11, 13 and 14 reported in the separate document linked above. WHO will provide details of the additional cases involved in this outbreak as well as intervention measures implemented by the MoH. The notification of additional cases does not change the overall risk assessment.

WHO expects that additional cases of MERS-CoV infection will be reported from the Middle East, and that cases will continue to be exported to other countries by individuals who might acquire the infection after exposure to dromedary camels, animal products (for example, consumption of camel’s raw milk), or humans (for example, in a health care setting). WHO continues to monitor the epidemiological situation and conducts risk assessment based on the latest available information.

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