Saudi Arabia reports 11 new cases of MERS virus, first in Mecca.

Saudi Arabia reports 11 new cases of MERS virus, first in Mecca.(Taz).

Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday it had discovered 11 more cases of the potentially deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), including what appeared to be the first case in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Reuters reported.

A health ministry statement said eight of the people were in intensive care, two were stable, including a 24-year-old Saudi man from the "holy capital" Mecca, and one showed no symptoms. Three of those affected worked in health care, it said.

Saudi Arabia has witnessed a jump in the rate of infection with the virus in recent weeks, with many of the new cases recorded in Jeddah, the kingdom's second largest city.

Of Wednesday's 11 new cases, four were recorded in the Saudi capital Riyadh, six in Jeddah - the second largest city and the main entry point for pilgrims visiting nearby Mecca - and one in Mecca itself, the statement said.

The jump in Saudi cases is of particular concern as the country is expected to see a large influx of pilgrims from around the world in July during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, followed in early October by the arrival of millions of people to perform the annual Haj in Mecca and Medina.

The latest cases bring the total number of confirmed cases in the kingdom to 272, of whom 81 have died.
MERS emerged in the Middle East in 2012 and is from the same family as the SARS virus, which killed around 800 people worldwide after first appearing in China in 2002. MERS can cause coughing, fever and pneumonia.

Although the worldwide number of MERS infections is fairly small, the more than 40 percent death rate among confirmed cases and the spread of the virus beyond the Middle East is keeping scientists and public health officials on alert.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah replaced the health minister on Monday amid growing public disquiet at the spread of the disease. A day before his dismissal, Abdullah al-Rabeeah said there were no cases of the virus in Mecca.

Labour Minister Adel Fakieh, who has been appointed as acting health minister, said on Wednesday he had just returned from a visit to the King Fahd hospital in Jeddah where a number of coronavirus patients are being treated.

Fakieh said he was pleased that a number of patients, including doctors, were recovering but said that there were a few critical cases still receiving medical care.

 Related from CROFT & Follow CROFT for the latest on MERS !

Saudi Arabia: Three senior HCWs in isolation with MERS

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Via Al-Watan, a report that promotes the new Health Minister but also drops a small bombshell about the current MERS cases in King Fahd Hospital: commandment King's "Faqih": the health of citizens, "the most expensive". Excerpt from the Google translation, lightly edited:

Eloquent and Health Minister-designate Adel Al Faqih confirm Monarch that "the health and safety of the citizen is the dearest and most precious in this country," adding, "directed King was explicit and clear not to spare any effort or money to deal with this challenge as he deserves, and provide all you can achieve the health and safety of the citizen. " 

said the minister for "homeland": the first thing that came into my head when I know the decision of the King that I asked my mother, pray for me, 

noting after a surprise visit was carried out, the morning of the first working day, the King Fahd Hospital in Jeddah, "me only a few hours Since that cost me the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, the primary concern now is to focus on dealing with the challenge virus Corona." 

In response to a question by the newspaper for dealing with the "Corona" in the coming days, said Faqih, the arrival of 20 international experts to the UK soon, to review procedures for the ministry, explaining It will continue to be with the media in all transparency and clarity, because the transparency right for the community. "  

Said Director of Public Relations at King Fahd Hospital General Sami Sepeh for "home": The number of inpatients in the isolation section 5 people 0.4 had recovered, although among the infected head of Cardiology, Dr. Osman Metwally, and consultant Batinah Dr Mohammed Khalifa, and consultant surgery, Dr. Abdul Rashid Yasin, along with two others.

The number of infections Corona to 261 cases, most notably in Jeddah, Riyadh, Tabuk and Medina, has also increased the number of deaths to 81 deaths.

So while they're not updating the MERS numbers, they mention that three of the five cases in isolation are pretty senior healthcare workers. That's a major revelation, and it helps explain why the hospital and Jeddah itself have been so alarmed.

CIDRAP: Antibody study hints at MERS-CoV in African camels

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Robert Roos has another good report in CIDRAP: Antibody study hints at MERS-CoV in African camels. Click through for the full article and links. Excerpt:

Dromedary camels in widely separated parts of Africa were exposed to the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) or a closely related virus well before the first human case was detected, researchers from the Netherlands and Africa reported yesterday. 

The discovery of MERS-CoV–like antibodies in camels in Nigeria, Tunisia, and Ethiopia expands the geographic range of the virus beyond the Middle East and raises the possibility of unrecognized human cases in Africa, according to the findings, published in an early online report from Emerging Infectious Diseases. 

Also today, researchers reported that a MERS-CoV virus collected from a camel in Qatar was able to infect and grow in human cells in a laboratory culture, adding further support for the view that camels are a source of human MERS-CoV infections. The information was in a report that Qatari officials filed with the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). 

The World Health Organization said last month that MERS-CoV very likely is spreading to humans from camels, but the exact transmission pathway remains unclear.

Dr. Mackay featured in Time Magazine article on MERS

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Via Time.com: Fears Rise Over MERS Outbreak While Saudis Fumble. Excerpt, slightly edited:

The worries are aggravated by the performance of the Saudi government, which has failed to confirm whether the virus is, in fact, mutating. The Saudis have either not performed tests that would reveal the changes, or have not shared them with international authorities, virologists complain. On Monday, Health Minister Abdullah al-Rabiah was fired amid mounting criticism of the kingdom’s handling of the budding crisis. 

“It’s frustrating,” says Ian Mackay, an associate professor at the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Institute at the University of Queensland, who compared the Saudi handling of MERS with China’s response to the 2013 outbreak of avian flu. “With the H7N9 virus, China provided almost too much information. You worried about the privacy of some of the patients, given the level of detail that China was providing. 

“But we’re seeing the complete opposite extreme in Saudi Arabia, where you can’t even get the sex of the patient in some cases,” Mackay tells TIME. “And the WHO doesn’t seem to be getting that information either.” 

Indeed, the World Health Organization as good as confirmed it did not have the latest information from Riyadh in declining to comment on the outbreak on Tuesday afternoon. 

“Kindly be advised that we cannot comment on latest MERS figures since we do not have the latest case count,” the WHO’s media office said an e-mailed reply to questions from TIME. “And we can only communicate and comment on the cases that we have been officially notified of by a member state, namely Saudi Arabia.” 

Concerns that the virus may have mutated are focused on two clusters of cases among health care workers: One cluster is in Jeddah, the western Saudi city through which pilgrims pass en route to nearby Mecca. The other cluster is among paramedics in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. 

Mackay, who noted the clusters in his blog, says he can see two possible explanations: “One is a fairly bad but widespread breakdown of infection control and prevention protocols” among the health care workers—that is, nurses or doctors failing to use gloves, surgical masks or other standard measures designed to prevent infection while working with a MERS patient. Such a breakdown would be possible even in a well-equipped and prosperous Gulf nation, Mackay noted, but for both outbreaks to take place at the same time “would be fairly coincidental.” 

The other, more alarming possibility? “The other avenue is the virus has changed and become more easily transmitted between humans,” Mackay said.

Saudi Arabia: What Faqih said after his visit to King Fahd Hospital

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Via Justice, a Saudi newspaper: Photos - What Fakih said after his visit to King Fahd Hospital. You can read the report with Google Translate, but that's not the important thing here. It's a series of photos of the new minister Adel Faqih, marching through the corridors of the hospital, pulling on gloves, mask and plastic overgarment, and then going in to talk with a MERS patient.

Yes, he should have had a cap and goggles on, but this was a photo op, not a serious sortie into enemy territory. As public-health theatre, it works pretty well. But we still don't have any MERS numbers for April 22.