#16,083
Since the summer of 2012, long before COVID made coronaviruses a household word, we've been following the emergence and spread of another zoonotic coronavirus - MERS-CoV- on the Arabian peninsula, which has infected (according the WHO) at least 2574 individuals, killing 886 (case-fatality ratio 34.4%).
MERS-CoV is, at least based on the numbers we have available, more than 10 times deadlier than SARS-CoV-2. Fortunately, MERS hasn't become nearly as transmissible as its COVID cousin, and while we've seen sizeable hospital outbreaks, the virus has yet to achieve sustained community transmission.
That could change of course, as MERS-CoV continues to evolve. So we pay attention whenever we see a human infection, or more importantly, a cluster.
Sadly, surveillance and reporting in the Middle East and parts of Africa, where MERS is endemic in camels, is intermittent at best. Due to a lack of resources, or sometimes just an unwillingness to divulge potentially damaging information, the MERS numbers we get are almost certainly an undercount.
Since the COVID pandemic began, the number of MERS case reports coming out of the Middle East has plummeted dramatically. Whether this reflects reality, or is due to limited surveillance and testing resources, is unknown.In 2016's EID Journal: Estimation of Severe MERS Cases in the Middle East, 2012–2016, researchers suggested that as many as 60% of severe Saudi MERS cases go undiagnosed, while a 2015 Seroprevalence study suggested nearly 45,000 might have been infected in Saudi Arabia alone.
The last report we saw was from early June, involving a 63 y.o. male from Almwaith City, Taif, who had prior camel contact.
Today's report (below) is the 10th case reported by the Saudis in 2021. Given that - until 2020 - we've seen an average of well over 200 cases a year out of Saudi Arabia since 2012, it is difficult to say how representative these 10 reported cases in 2021 are of their MERS-Cov situation.
