In updates yesterday and today, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) announced five new MERS-CoV cases, one of them fatal.
Yesterday the MOH reported four new MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) cases, two in Riyadh and a pair from Buraydah, located about 200 miles northwest of Riyadh in the north central part of the country.
The Pakistani city of Quetta has launched a new 5-day vaccination campaign against polio targeted at children under the age of 5, Reuters reported today.
Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that a rare vaccine-derived type 2 strain of polio was found in sewage samples taken from Quetta in November. No cases of this type 2 polio have been reported in humans so far.
A new study published today in PLOS Medicine shows that the Zika virus triggers Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) and causes congenial birth defects. Though these findings have been demonstrated by other studies, this is the largest systemic literature review of the most devastating outcomes of Zika infection to date.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) today announced two new MERS-CoV illnesses, both of them involving expat women working as healthcare workers in Aseer, located in the southwestern corner of the country.
Saudi Arabia late yesterday announced three more MERS cases in three cities, raising the total over the past week to six cases.
All three cases are listed as primary, meaning there are no known links to other MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) cases, the Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH) said. None of the patients work in healthcare or had exposure to camels.
The MOH listed the patients as:
Saudi Arabian health officials have reported three new MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) infections in recent days, two of them involving exposure to camels. All three patients have symptoms and are in stable condition, officials said.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported two new MERS-CoV cases in Mecca, one of whom is an asymptomatic household contact, according to separate updates yesterday and today.
In related developments, a pair of WHO updates flesh out the details for 22 infections reported by Saudi Arabia since late November.
Macao has reported its first human H7N9 avian influenza case, involving a 58-year-old man who owns a poultry market stall, according to a Xinhua report today in Chinese translated and posted by Avian Flu Diary (AFD), an infectious disease news blog. AFD said there are multiple media outlets reporting the finding, which was announced in an early morning media briefing by the local health department.
Also, Korean researchers detailed transmission patterns in its 2015 outbreak, including a role for doctor shopping and ED visits in super-spreading events.
