Thanks to Marc Sprenger for tweeting the link to this ECDC Epidemiological update: additional confirmed cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus infection (MERS coronavirus) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Italy. Click through for links to the footnotes.
Since last ECDC update on 23 May 2013 [1], nine new confirmed cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection have been reported.
Six cases were reported by the Ministry of Health of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia [2-3]. Five of the cases were patients from Eastern region of the country but not from Al Hasa. All of them had underlying medical conditions, which required frequent hospital visits, three of these cases have died [4]. An additional case was reported from Al Hasa, a 61 year old patient with underlying medical condition [3].
Three cases were reported by the Ministry of Health in Italy [5-7]. The index patient, a 45 year old man with recent travel history to Jordan, returned to Italy on 25 May 2013 with symptoms of cough and fatigue. He was hospitalised on 28 May and is in a stable condition. Two additional cases, two-year old girl and 42 year old woman, with close contact with the index patient in Italy, have been reported. Infection resulted most probably from human-to-human transmission.
As of 03 June 2013, 53 confirmed MERS-CoV cases have been reported since the earliest case identified in April 2012 in Jordan, of which 30 are known to have died. To date, eleven of these cases have been diagnosed in Europe: three in Italy [7], two in France [10], two in Germany [8] and four in the United Kingdom [9].
Overall, 38 cases have been reported in Saudi Arabia, 23 of these were associated with the cluster in Al Hasa [11-12].Two cases have been reported from Jordan [13] and two cases from Tunisia [14].
ECDC continues to monitor information on the situation of MERS-CoV worldwide. In the light of these new developments, the recommendations given in the rapid risk assessment of the 17 May 2013 are still valid [1].
