#13,993
In addition to the two cases announced overnight (see Epi Week 15 - 2 More Secondary MERS Cases in Al Khafji), the Saudi MOH has announced 4 new MERS cases for today, including a 10th case in the Al Kahfji cluster which began about 10 days ago.
Worth noting, this 10th case is the first female (age 34) reported in this cluster.Three other primary (community acquired) cases are reported from three different cities (Riyadh, Jeddah, and Najran) - all are male (ages 51, 79, 80) - and all are described as having `unknown' camel contact.
After the break we'll look at some new format changes, and recent edits, to the Saudi MOH daily reports that, unfortunately, don't do a lot to help our ability to track these cases.
Over the past week nearly all of the cases reported have been listed as having `unknown' camel contact. In the past we've generally gotten a pretty definitive `Yes' or `No' answer, even though it isn't always easy to determine.
Today I went back to the start of Epi Week 14, and found that the Contact with Camels status of several cases which were previously stated as `No' have since been reset to `unknown'.
I've no idea the reason behind this, or even if this is a permanent or temporary change.What constitutes `camel contact' has always been a bit nebulous, and admittedly, recent camel exposure isn't necessarily a guaranteed source of an individual's infection, but it was a semi-useful data point.
Since the first of the year, the type of secondary infection (usually household, or hospital) has also been removed these reports, and the patient's status no longer tells us if a patient is hospitalized or in home isolation.When compared to some of their Arab neighbors - the Saudi reports are practically expansive - but the amount of information we get today pales in comparison to what was being provided by the MOH only a couple of years ago.
