Via Arab News, some clarification about the 53rd MERS death in Saudi Arabia: Woman, 83, dies of MERS in Jubail. But questions remain. The full report:
An 83-year-old woman in Jubail has died of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus infection, the second to be recorded in eastern city in a week.
This brings to 53 the death toll from MERS in the Kingdom.
The victim had suffered several chronic diseases and was admitted to the hospital’s primary care a month ago.
Khalid Marghalani, the Health Ministry's spokesman, said the victim became infected from another MERS patient admitted in the same hospital.
The ministry issued a statement on Monday saying that there are three new cases of MERS in the Eastern Province.
According to the statement, a 54-year-old resident working for the health sector who suffered from chronic diseases and a 49-year-old citizen have also been infected.
Both have been hospitalized.But who was the patient whose MERS was transmitted to this unfortunate woman? One of the other two cases mentioned? According to Andrew Rambaut's running tally, the woman was case #164. The 54-year-old HCW is case #165, and the 49-year-old citizen is case #166. All three were reported on October 26, but who knows when they fell ill? We also have case #163, a 53-year-old man in Jubail who died on October 22.
Jubail is a big city in Eastern Province, so it may be that a hospital there has dealt with all four cases. The contact must have been one of them; the last Eastern Province case was #94, a 50-year-old woman who was discharged from hospital on July 2.
Robert Roos at CIDRAP also has a report on these cases as well as the new asymptomatic case in Qatar.
