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| Credit Hong Kong CHP |
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Several times over the past 3 months (see MERS-CoV: Forgotten, But Not Gone) I've written that Saudi Arabia stopped updating their MERS-CoV surveillance page in early April, and that the last monthly WHO EMRO MERS report was posted in February and only covered through the end of January.
The WHO did publish a Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) – Saudi Arabia DON on May 5th, but it was for cases reported during the month of March.
While the Saudi MOH web page remains silent, we do have a fresh DON (Disease Outbreak News) report from the World Health Organization reporting 9 cases over the two months of April and May. Included are 6 cases from a hospital cluster in late May, which may have extended into June.
Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) – Saudi Arabia
Disease Outbreak News: Update
2 July 2020
Between 1 April and 31 May 2020, the National IHR Focal Point of Saudi Arabia reported nine new cases of MERS-CoV infection, including five deaths. The cases were reported from Riyadh (seven cases), Assir (one case) and Northern (one case) Regions. Most cases were and ages of the reported cases ranged from 40 to 96 years.
Of the cases reported in Riyadh six were from a hospital outbreak in the region between 21 and 31 May 2020: an index case who was a newly admitted patient, and five secondary cases identified through contact tracing. One of the secondary cases was a health care worker and the other four were in-patients admitted due to other health conditions. All four in-patients were bedridden and above 75 years of age. All reported cases had comorbidities with the exception of the healthcare worker.
The link below provides details of the nine reported cases.
(Continue . . . )
Reporting just 4 community cases over two full months (April and May) is unusual, particularly since late spring and early summer are typically the `high season' for MERS cases in Saudi Arabia cases (see The Global Seasonal Occurrence of MERS-CoV).
Saudi Arabia is dealing, as is the rest of the world, with COVID-19 and is approaching 200,000 cases. It is understandable and likely unavoidable that MERS-CoV testing and surveillance has taken a backseat to SARS-CoV-2.
Understandable or not, our inability to effectively monitor known threats (MERS, avian & swine flu, and even seasonal flu mutations) has declined during this pandemic (see Forgotten Fronts & Global Blind Spots), leaving us vulnerable to being blindsided again.
While hopefully there is no double whammy in our immediate future, given our current lack of global surveillance and reporting, no news is no guarantee of good news.
