AFP/Riyadh

 

 

Saudi Arabia yesterday urged elderly and chronically-ill Muslims to postpone their plans for the Haj pilgrimage this year to curb the spread of the Mers coronavirus which has killed 38 in the kingdom so far.

The health ministry issued a set of conditions for people wanting to perform the annual Haj, which this year falls in October, or the year-round Umrah or minor pilgrimage.

They recommend postponing the Umrah and Haj this year “for the elderly and those suffering chronic illnesses, like heart, kidney, respiratory diseases, and diabetes”.

People with immunity deficiency, as well as children and pregnant women, are also listed, according to a ministry statement posted on its website.

The statement did not set an age limit, and it was not clear if the recommendation implies that no visas will be issued for such pilgrims.

The ministry said that the conditions were part of “preventive measures special to the Mers coronavirus”.

The kingdom is battling to contain the spread of the Sars-like coronavirus, which has infected 65 people in Saudi Arabia and led to 38 fatalities.

Those figures represent the majority of people affected worldwide - 81 cases of infection and 45 deaths - according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The Saudi decision comes after the WHO convened emergency talks on Mers last week, with concerns expressed about its potential impact on the Haj when millions of Muslims head to and from Saudi Arabia.

Experts are struggling to understand Mers (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome).

The WHO has not recommended any Mers-related travel restrictions, but says countries should monitor unusual respiratory infection patterns.

The first recorded Mers death was in June last year in Saudi Arabia.

Like Sars, Mers appears to cause a lung infection, with patients suffering from fever, coughing and breathing difficulties. But it differs in that it also causes rapid kidney failure.

France, Jordan, Qatar, Germany, Tunisia and Britain have reported infections.

Health authorities in the UAE on Friday announced that an 82-year-old man has been diagnosed with the Mers-virus  infection, the first case to be recorded in the  state.

The Emirati citizen who contracted the virus suffers from cancer and is being treated in hospital in the capital, Abu Dhabi health authority said in a statement.

The authority said that this was the first case to be diagnosed in the United Arab Emirates.

In May, France said a 65-year-old man was in hospital after being diagnosed with the coronavirus after a holiday in Dubai. But the UAE health ministry had said at the time no cases of the virus had been recorded in the country.

There are many important details about Mers that scientists haven’t yet been able to figure out. For instance, researchers think that Mers, like Sars, comes from bats - but they aren’t entirely certain. They also don’t know whether the virus spreads to pets or livestock before it strikes people or how it would do so, said Christian Drosten, head of the Institute of Virology at the University of Bonn Medical Centre in Germany.

Scientists are still perfecting their methods to test for the virus in ailing patients. Swabs from nasal passages and throats don’t seem to pick up the pathogen as well as samples from deep in the lungs. Experts don’t know how many people may have been infected with Mers without getting sick from it, Drosten said.