Following a summer lull in cases, the WHO's MERS panel says the outbreak still falls short of heightened concern.
Austria has reported its first MERS case, involving a visiting Saudi Arabian woman, while her home country has reported yet another case.
The Austrian health ministry said yesterday that the Saudi woman arrived in the country a few days ago and is now isolated in a Vienna hospital in critical condition, according to a Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) story today.
The number of chikungunya cases in the Caribbean and surrounding areas continues to grow, with 9,006 new cases bringing the outbreak total to 747,721, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) reported late last week.
Colombia reported the largest increase, with 3,347 new cases (from 1,350 to 4,697), followed by Martinique, with 2,390 new cases; Puerto Rico, with 1,166; and Guadeloupe, 880.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed a new MERS-CoV infection today—the 10th since Sep 8—as well as the death of a recently reported case-patient.
The new case is in a 60-year-old Saudi from Riyadh who had unspecified preexisting disease. He is hospitalized in an intensive care unit (ICU) and is not a healthcare worker nor did he have any recent exposure to animals, the MOH said.
Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) has been confirmed in 220 patients in 31 states and the District of Columbia, up 45 cases and 5 states in the past 2 days, according to an update today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In addition, Rhode Island confirmed the first reported US case this year in an adult.
The national count of confirmed enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) cases reached 160 in 22 states on Sep 19, which is seven more cases and three more states than reported a day earlier, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
An independent audit of MERS-CoV data in Saudi Arabia yesterday identified 16 more infections with illness onsets before Jun 3 and has reclassified a handful of previously reported cases, the country's Ministry of Health (MOH) announced yesterday.
It said the review is part of an ongoing effort to ensure that MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) data are accurate.
Today Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed another MERS-CoV case, the sixth in just over a week and the second in as many days.
The case involves a 27-year-old Saudi man who is hospitalized in a ward in Taif in Mecca province, the MOH said. He is not a healthcare worker and had pre-existing disease and no contact with animals, the agency said. He is symptomatic. No other details were provided.
The number of states reporting confirmed cases of enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) has doubled, to 12, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today, and cases have been confirmed in Alberta as well.
EV-D68, a respiratory virus that was relatively rare until recently, has been sending children to hospital emergency departments with wheezing and breathing difficulty.
Health officials reported another big spike in the Caribbean region's chikungunya outbreak, much of it due to updated surveillance information from the Dominican Republic, the hardest-hit country, according to the latest report from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). PAHO also reported a tripling of outbreak deaths, to 113.
