Health officials in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) reported two new MERS-CoV cases, the country's first since last June, Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported today.
Also, a trial in infants of a high-dose type 2 inactivated vaccine candidate shows promise.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) today reported a MERS-CoV case, the country's first in 15 days. The case, from Buraidah, is likely linked to another recent case from the same location. The latest patient is a healthcare worker who contracted the virus in a healthcare setting.
Having a longer incubation period—the time from virus exposure to disease—was tied to a lower risk of death in MERS-CoV patients in South Korea, according to a study yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
French and Hong Kong researchers analyzed data on 170 cases of MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) infection, of which exposure data were available for 109.
The number of cases in an Escherichia coli O26 outbreak linked to Chipotle restaurants in Oregon and Washington, which has fluctuated over the past 2 days as investigations progress and states receive test results, now stands at 41.
Nations in the Americas and Caribbean reported 13,476 new cases of chikungunya, bringing the outbreak total to 1,760,798, according to a Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) update from late last week that was not posted till yesterday.
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) on Oct 23 reported 2,095 new cases of chikungunya in the Caribbean and Americas.
This brings the overall total this year to 600,553, including 575,281 suspected, 24,388 confirmed locally acquired, and 884 imported cases. PAHO's last update included 2,464 new cases.
New DNA evidence has shown that Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plaque, has been endemic in humans for at least 3,000 years before the first plague pandemic was recorded, according to findings yesterday in Cell.
More than 500 new cholera cases have been reported in Iraq since last week, and the outbreak has spread to the northern region of Iraqi Kurdistan, according to a Middle East Online update yesterday.
The chikungunya outbreak in the Caribbean and the Americas continued to expand slowly, as the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) added 3,409 new cases in its weekly update published late last week.
