by Cristina Brown
The World Health Organization has reported the case in the United Arab Emirates, urging vigilance. No contagion among the patient’s 108 contacts. The disease has a fatality rate of 34%
A 28-year-old man from Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) is hospitalized in critical condition after contracting the MERS virus (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus), a coronavirus typically transmitted by dromedaries or goats. To make it known‘World Health Organization who urged vigilance by inviting not to let our guard down because other infections are expected. For now, however, none of the 108 patient contacts subjected to tests and surveillance have so far tested positive.
The patient’s odyssey
The patient began to feel ill in early June and went several times to a private medical center between 3 and 7 June 2023, complaining of vomiting, pain in his right side and dysuria (pain when urinating), explains WHO. On June 8, at the umpteenth visit, the patient was hospitalized with suspected pancreatitis with kidney damage and an infection. After a few days, on June 13, he was transferred in critical condition to intensive care where he was subjected to mechanical ventilation. The diagnosis of Mers arrived on June 23 after the patient underwent an oro-nasopharyngeal swab. At the moment, the health authorities are still investigating the source of the infection which remains unknown: the patient has not had contact with animals, including dromedaries or camels, nor consumed food derived from them. None of the 108 patient contacts who underwent testing and surveillance tested positive.
The experts: don’t be alarmed
Mers is certainly a much more lethal respiratory infection than Covid, but it has proven to be much less contagious. No one can say whether this case will have a sequel, but I would say that at this stage there is no alarm, reassures Maria Rita Gismondo, director of the Laboratory of clinical microbiology, virology and bioemergency diagnostics at the Sacco hospital in Milan. Walter Ricciardi, professor of hygiene at the Catholic University warns: We do not have vaccination tools, so we must be doubly careful. Be prepared when these coronaviruses resurface. We must be ready to limit circulation, to intervene. Ever since Mers began to spread – Matteo Bassetti, director of infectious diseases at the San Martino Polyclinic in Genoa, told beraking latest news – that is, basically about 10 years ago, we have always had cases either in the summer or during pilgrimages to Mecca . They hadn’t been there for a few years, but there was probably even less interest in the subject. I absolutely think it’s not a problem.
What the Mers
Mers is a serious infectious disease caused by the Mers-Cov coronavirus, a close relative of Sars-Cov that causes Sars and of the much better known Sars-Cov2 responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic. The first confirmed case of Mers was recorded in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. The mortality rate of Mers is very high, equal to about 34%. From 2012 to today, 2,605 cases of Mers have been recorded (three in Italy); the number of deaths, on the other hand, amounts to 936. The Mers Cov virus has bats as its natural reservoir, which in turn infect camels, goats and dromedaries with their droppings. In general, humans contract the virus after contact with infected animals, but human-to-human transmission via respiratory droplets is also possible, albeit rarer. At the moment there is no evidence that people can transmit the disease before they show symptoms (as happens with Covid) and this is also one of the reasons why it is easier to stem Mers. The average incubation period of about 5 days. The symptoms of the disease are fever, chills, body aches, in some cases diarrhoea, difficulty breathing which rapidly evolves into acute respiratory failure. Patients almost always develop acute renal failure.
July 26, 2023 (change July 26, 2023 | 3:26 pm)
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