News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Another Saudi Arabian has been infected with the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), while six others whose illnesses were previously announced have died, Saudi Arabian authorities and the World Health Organization announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – Two healthcare workers are among six new novel coronavirus (nCoV) cases reported in Saudi Arabia since late yesterday, suggesting that the virus might have spread from infected patients to hospital staff members.

(CIDRAP News) – France reported its first case of novel coronavirus (nCoV) illness today, while the World Health Organization (WHO) voiced concern over the cluster of 13 recent cases in Saudi Arabia, saying answers to the virus's many mysteries are urgently needed.

(CIDRAP News) – Following the recent retrospective confirmation of two fatal infections with a novel coronavirus (CoV) in Jordan, the Jordanian health ministry said no more such cases have surfaced in the country since April, according to media reports.

(CIDRAP News) – Five years after the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic spread around the globe via air travel, significant barriers still stand in the way of tracking down and notifying airline passengers who may have been exposed to an infectious disease.

(CIDRAP News) – The Chinese Ministry of Health is conducting its own investigation into the report of a man who died of H5N1 avian influenza in late 2003, according to a report today by Agence France-Presse (AFP). The case was first described by eight Chinese researchers in the Jun 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

(CIDRAP News) – Tests have confirmed that a 16-year-old girl and a 20-year-old woman who died in Indonesia last week had avian influenza, raising Indonesia's case tally to 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.

The announcement follows China's report yesterday of its first two confirmed human cases of H5N1 avian flu on the mainland. The WHO has registered a total of 130 cases, including 67 deaths, since December 2003.

(CIDRAP News) – Reports today said three rare palm civets that recently died in captivity in Vietnam were infected with an H5N1 avian influenza virus, adding another species to the list of those susceptible to the pathogen.