#16,098
For the second time in just over a week (see July 25th's blog Saudi MOH Reports A MERS-CoV Case In Riyadh), the Saudi MOH is reporting a MERS-CoV case in the nation's capital, Riyadh. This is only the 11th case reported by Saudi's in 2021, which is far below the average we've seen reported in past years (2014-2019).
Reporting on MERS fell off a cliff in May of 2020 - much as have reports of other respiratory diseases like influenza, RSV, Measles - as COVID surged in the Middle East, and lockdowns and NPIs came into play.
Admittedly, the Saudi's surveillance and reporting on MERS has always been a bit spotty (see 2016's EID Journal: Estimation of Severe MERS Cases in the Middle East, 2012–2016), with many experts believing that we were only learning of a fraction of the symptomatic cases.
A 2018 study (see Evaluation of a Visual Triage for the Screening of MERS-CoV Patients) written by former Deputy Health Minister Ziad A. Memish et al., warned that Saudi Arabia's screening process for MERS testing was `. . . not predictive of MERS infection.'
Add in repeated long lapses in reporting by KSA (see Saudi MOH: 5 Months Without A MERS-COV Update), and the recent reduction in MERS cases being reported may be slightly less reassuring.
In any event, the latest case is reported to be a 65 y.o. male with camel contact (see below).
While we've seen scattered exported cases from KSA and other Middle Eastern nations - some even leading to major outbreaks (see Superspreaders & The Korean MERS Epidemiological Report) - MERS-CoV hasn't embarked on a global tour the way that SARS did in 2003 and SARS-CoV-2 has since early 2020.
We have seen analyses, however (see Study: A Pandemic Risk Assessment Of MERS-CoV In Saudi Arabia), suggesting the virus doesn't have all that far to evolve before it could also pose a genuine global threat.
And while nobody really knows how big of a threat it might pose, the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV simultaneously infecting the same host is regarded as a theoretical breeding ground - via recombination - of new, potentially more dangerous, coronaviruses (see Co-infection of MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 in the same host: A silent threat).
So, we watch reports like today's from Saudi Arabia with considerable interest.
