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The Saudi MOH has announced the second MERS case of Epi Week 50, this time involving a 72 y.o. woman from Riyadh, reportedly with unknown camel contact.
This is the 203rd case reported by the Saudis in 2019, and the third case for the month of December.
Direct or indirect camel contact is often cited as a source of MERS infection - along with contact with a known MERS case (usually in a household or hospital cluster) - but in roughly half the primary cases the source of infection is never identified.
There are strong suspicions, however, that mildly ill - or potentially asymptomatic cases - in the community may be spreading the virus, albeit inefficiently.For now, it appears that human MERS cases continue to emerge mainly because the virus is continually reintroduced into the human population by close contact with infected camels.
A 2017 study, however (see A Pandemic Risk Assessment Of MERS-CoV In Saudi Arabia), suggests the virus doesn't have all that far to evolve before it transmit efficiently in humans.
