Screenshot today KSA Epi-Week 10
#15,862
To the casual observer visiting KSA's MERS Surveillance page (see above) it would appear that there are no new MERS-CoV cases. But, for reasons I am at a loss to explain, case data doesn't always get migrated to the surveillance page.
Sometimes you have to dig deeper.
Although there is no direct link to a 2021 case listing on this surveillance page (only 2018, 2019, 2020), you can get there by selecting any of those links, where you will find a link to 2021. And there we find two new cases for Epi Week 10.
The two new cases are described as:
Although the World Health Organization finally, after more than a year, updated their 2020 MERS Surveillance numbers (see WHO EMRO Updates A Year's Worth Of MERS-COV Reports From Saudi Arabia) in late February, so far they've published no updates on the 7 cases reported since January 1st.
Even in the best of times (before COVID), estimates were that only a fraction of symptomatic MERS cases were being identified (see EID Journal: Estimation of Severe MERS Cases in the Middle East, 2012–2016), and that is likely even truer today.They can report, of course, only what is relayed to them by the member states.
Prior to SARS-CoV-2 successfully jumping to humans, MERS-CoV was considered the coronavirus with the greatest pandemic potential. It still carries that same potential, and therefore deserves our attention.
Hopefully this spotty reporting - in KSA, and the rest of the Middle East - doesn't result in our being blindsided again.
