The world needs to wake up to the threat posed by the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers). The World Health Organisation said last Thursday it had been told of 243 laboratory-confirmed cases of Mers infections worldwide, of which 93 have proved fatal. Cases have been reported in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, the UAE, Oman, Yemen and Tunisia as well as in several countries in Europe.
Although the worldwide number of Mers infections is fairly small, the more than 40% death rate among confirmed cases and the spread of the virus beyond the Middle East is keeping scientists and public health officials on alert.
Scientists are increasingly focused on a link between human infections and camels as a possible “animal reservoir” of the virus.
The Saudi Arabian health ministry reported over the weekend that two foreigners had died of Mers in Jeddah as fears rose over the spreading respiratory virus in the country’s commercial hub.
The ministry said five more people were infected with Mers in the western city, including two foreign medics aged 54.
The latest deaths of a 64-year-old and a 44-year-old, whose nationalities were undisclosed, bring to 76 the overall number of people to have died of Mers in Saudi Arabia, from a total of 231 infections.
Panic over the spread of Mers among medical staff in Jeddah this month forced the temporary closure of a hospital emergency room, prompting Health Minister Abdullah al-Rabiah to visit the facility in a bid to calm the public.
Last Wednesday, at least four doctors at the King Fahd hospital reportedly resigned after refusing to treat Mers patients, apparently out of fear of infection.
Mers, which emerged in the Middle East in 2012, was initially concentrated in eastern Saudi Arabia but it has now spread to other areas.
The virus is considered a deadlier but less-transmissible cousin of the Sars virus that erupted in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, 9% of whom died.
Experts are still struggling to understand Mers for which there is no known vaccine. A recent study said the virus has been “extraordinarily common” in camels for at least 20 years, and may have been passed directly from the animals to humans.
The UAE news agency Wam said on Friday that an expatriate health worker had died from the virus and five others had been infected in the state.
Qatar’s Supreme Council of Health (SCH) had announced three Mers-related deaths until November 19, 2013, after which no cases have been reported.
In late December, Qatari authorities reported via the World Organisation for Animal Health that a camel herd that had Mers infections associated with two human Mers cases seems to be free of the virus.
In a positive development in the fight against Mers, the SCH announced in March this year that a joint Qatari and Dutch research team had succeeded in culturing the virus in the laboratory.
The breakthrough will increase the knowledge for prevention and control of Mers in addition to enhancing the development of diagnostic tools and production of vaccines and treatment for the virus.
It is the need of the hour that there is a global movement to contain Mers before it spreads further.
