A preponderance of secondary MERS-CoV infections tend to occur in older and/or male relatives of a primary MERS patient and those with preexisting medical conditions, say findings of a study yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID). Risk factors for household transmission included sleeping in the same room with a MERS patient and direct patient care.
No new MERS-CoV cases have been reported today, but the World Health Organization (WHO) has posted information on the case reported recently from Qatar as well as details of several previously reported cases from Saudi Arabia.
Ending a 9-day stretch with no new cases, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) yesterday reported a MERS-CoV infection in a 72-year-old man from Hail in the north central part of the country, according to an MOH notification.
The man is in stable condition, and an investigation into the source of his illness found that he had contact with camels before he got sick.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) today reported an asymptomatic MERS-CoV infection in a man in Riyadh who is a household contact of a previous MERS patient.
Qatar yesterday reported its second MERS-CoV case this year in a man with no travel history, according to translated information from Qatar's Ministry of Public Health posted on FluTrackers, an infectious disease message board.
A report by CBS's 60 Minutes yesterday alleged that the US company Halyard Health for years sold surgical gowns that it knew were defective, putting healthcare workers at risk for bloodborne infections. In a press release today, the company strongly denied the allegations
Asymptomatic migratory birds may play a role in geographic dissemination as well as facilitate the viral evolution and reassortment of highly pathogenic H5N8 avian influenza, Chinese researchers reported yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
The WHO's overview of recent Saudi cases shows familiar exposure patterns.
A nonprofit group's annual report on US public health spending says overall funding is still stuck below where it was before the recession of 2008-09, although spending by states may be picking up a bit.
"Federal funding for public health has remained relatively level for years," says the report by the Trust for America's Health (TFAH), based in Washington, DC.
MERS virus was detected in hospital air samples and swabs of hard surfaces during the height of Korea's outbreak in 2015, according to a study today in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
