New York: Europe and the Arabs
The World Health Organization reported that it had received notification of a human case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) on September 5 from the Ministry of Health in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. According to the United Nations daily news bulletin, a copy of which we received this morning, the organization said in a statement yesterday, Wednesday, that the infected man was between 50 and 55 years old, from the Eastern Province of the Kingdom, and had underlying health conditions.
The man had developed symptoms of fever, cough, shortness of breath and palpitations in late August. The World Health Organization confirmed that the man had no history of contact with camels and was not a health care worker. It said that follow-up had been completed with people who had been in close contact with him, and no secondary cases had been detected.
Since the beginning of the year, five cases - including four deaths - have been reported in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The World Health Organization said that the notification of this case does not change its overall risk assessment, which remains moderate at the global and regional levels.
Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is a viral respiratory infection with a case fatality rate of 36 percent. However, the World Health Organization said this figure may be overestimated due to possible underreporting of mild cases that are not detected by current surveillance systems, and the case fatality rate is calculated based on laboratory-confirmed cases only. Humans become infected with MERS-CoV through direct or indirect contact with dromedary camels, which serve as the virus’s natural host and animal reservoir.