#13,960
After a remarkable February, which saw 68 MERS cases reported from Saudi Arabia, we've seen a noticeable slowdown in reports the past two weeks, with only one case reported during Epi week 12, and 3 cases reported so far in Epi Week 13.
All of the human infections reported over the past two weeks have been widely scattered (Medina, Khameres Meshalt, Al Kharj, Hufoof) primary cases - two of which had reported camel contact - while two others did not.The details on week 13 cases follows:
Despite an active start to 2019, we haven't seen any indication of sustained or efficient transmission of the MERS virus in the Middle East.
That said, a 2017 study found the virus's basic reproduction number (R0 : pronounced R-nought) was inching closer to the magic number of 1.0, which is what is required for an outbreak to have `legs' (see A Pandemic Risk Assessment Of MERS-CoV In Saudi Arabia).Making any spike in MERS activity a concern, and with expected influx of tens of thousands of religious pilgrims to KSA for the Holy Month of Ramadan (May 5th-Jun 4th), well worth our continued attention.
