Avian Flu Diary: Saudi MOH Announces 4 MERS-CoV Cases For 2021

#15,795

Ten days ago the World Health Organization published their first update on MERS-CoV in Saudi Arabia since last summer. The good news is, KSA only reported 4 cases during the second half of 2020.

The bad news is, KSA has a chequered history MERS surveillance and of reporting cases (see 2018's The Saudi MOH Breaks Their Silence On MERS-CoV).

While I would like to believe that only 4 MERS-CoV cases occurred in KSA in the second half of 2020, over the previous 4 years (2016-2019) they averaged more than 200 cases a year.

Follow the link below for the full, lengthy report.

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) – The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Disease Outbreak News: Update
1 February 2021

Between 1 June through 31 December 2020, the National IHR Focal Point of Saudi Arabia reported four additional cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) with one associated death. The cases were reported from Riyadh (two cases), Taif (one case), and Al-Ahsaa (one case) Regions.

(Continue . . . )

On Saturday (Feb 7th) I visited the Saudi MOH daily MERS surveillance website and confirmed it had not been updated since early December, and had yet to launch a 2021 report page. Hope springs eternal, and so I try to check back every few days, looking for an update.

This morning, I found one, citing 4 new MERS cases for 2021. Well, actually 3. But digging around I stumbled across another one.

The Default landing page for the MOH's MERS surveillance is supposed to show the activity in the current epi week. And here we find not only 2 fresh cases for Epi Week 6, but an update for one (now deceased) case from (previously unpublished) Epi week 5.

The two current cases, both said to have had contact with camels, are listed below.

By clicking on the MERS IN Rabigh link in the first chart, we are taken to EPI Week 5 page, and the (now deceased) Case.

With no other links to follow, I decided to try editing the url for Epi Week 5 to what should take me to Epi Week 4, and got this error message.

Although I had no better luck with Epi Week 1 or 2, when I tried Epi Week 3, I found this 4th case (also deceased).

On none of these 4 screens is there a link to a 2021 MERS landing page, although there are links to archives for 2020, 2019 and 2018 at the bottom of the first (default landing page). While it's a circuitous way to get there, by clicking any of those pages you do finally get to a link to the new 2021 landing page (below)

I've listed the process I used to obtain these links because others may find themselves in a similar predicament someday on this, or another website, and may want to try some digging.

It is worth noting that WHO EMRO - which had managed to post monthly reports of MERS in the Middle East even during past `information blackouts' by the Saudi MOH, still hasn't posted an update since January 2020.

Even during the best of times Saudi Surveillance and reporting has been estimated to be picking up only a fraction of the actual MERS cases in the Kingdom (see EID Journal: Estimation of Severe MERS Cases in the Middle East, 2012–2016).

Prior to the emergence of COVID-19, MERS-CoV was considered the coronavirus with the greatest potential to spark a pandemic. While SARS-CoV-2 beat it to the punch, the pandemic potential of MERS-CoV has not gone away.

Hopefully today's update and backfilling of data signals a renewed commitment to open reporting of cases in Saudi Arabia. Of course, I said the exact same thing last November when the Saudi MOH Reported Their 1st MERS Case In More Than 5 Months.