#13,906
The rate of new MERS cases announced by the Saudi MOH has declined substantially over the past 10 days but we continue to see a smattering of cases, including secondary cases without any clear indication of the source of their exposure.
Yesterday we saw two such cases from Riyadh, and today we have another from Aldwadmi city - which is located about 140 miles west of Riyadh - where we've not seen any recent activity reported.The patient, a 61 y.o. male, reportedly had no recent camel contact. Beyond that, we know very little.
Curiously, over the past couple of days we've seen even less information than usual divulged in these normally terse MOH daily reports.
All 3 case classifications for Epi week 10 have been listed as `secondary' without any indication as to type (hospital acquired, household, Under Investigation, etc.), and their current status - which in the past has usually been stated as hospitalized, home isolation, recovered, or deceased - have all been listed as simply`active'.While the amount of information in these daily reports falls short of what we'd like to see - compared to what we get from Oman, the UAE, and others in the region - the Saudis border on being verbose.
Today's announcement brings the Saudi 2019 MERS total to 87 cases, compared to just over 40 cases during the same time period in 2018.
