News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Italy announced its first Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) case today, in a man who recently spent time in Jordan, site of the first known MERS illnesses, according to media reports.

(CIDRAP News) – Jordan's health ministry has sent 124 respiratory samples it collected from suspected Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) cases, none of which appear to be recent infections, to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for testing, the agency said today.

(CIDRAP News) – Saudi Arabia reported today that a foreigner died yesterday of a MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) infection, while health officials in Jordan offered new details—some of them puzzling—about a hospital cluster of cases that occurred there in April 2012.

(CIDRAP News) – A media report today said the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has reached Tunisia, killing one man and infecting two of his relatives, while Saudi Arabia has reported another death and a new case since May 17.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed today that two healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia who are sick with the novel coronavirus (nCoV) had been exposed to infected patients, marking the first time the virus apparently followed that pathway.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) said the growing number of clusters of novel coronavirus (nCoV) cases offers increasing evidence that the virus can spread between people in close contact, as France confirmed the infection in a patient who shared a hospital room with the country's first case-patient.

(CIDRAP News) – A nurse who worked at a hospital that cared for a Frenchman who is sick with a novel coronavirus (nCoV) infection may now have the virus herself, becoming the third person possibly infected in connection with the case, according to news services.