Tuesday 29 October 2013

Latest confirmed cases and a probable new MERS-CoV case(s) in France [UPDATED]

It's been a couple of days since the last report of a new MERS-CoV case, that of an expatriate, 23-year old asymptomatic male contact of another case in Doha, Qatar (the 7th seemingly acquired on Qatari soil). 23M (FT#150) was mildly ill and was diagnosed through routine screening of contacts. The man worked with animals in a barn owned by a previous case according to the latest WHO update. Once again this highlights that the MERS-CoV can move on from an infected person and it can do it stealthily. However, the next "round" of infection seems to be (a) milder in severity and (b) the end of the transmission event.

Unfortunately the recently described MERS-CoV-positive 83-year old woman in Jubail on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia, has reportedly died. Apparently she was hospitalised a month ago.


Buzzing around on Twitter (thanks to @makoto_au_japon) and the web nothing is the story of a probable case in a 43-year old in France. The man returned from a stay in Saudi Arabia and he is currently described as stable. There areno more details on France's Department of Health and Social Affairs website but they have noted it on their Twitter feed (@Minist_Sante) and have the media release. The various translations mention the plural, "cases" (machine glitch?). An article in the Khaleej Times notes it is unclear whether this person was a pilgrim to the Hajj. My Form 3 French is very rusty and didn't covered public health so I eagerly await laboratory confirmation. 


If this imported case is confirmed [UPDATE: it was not] it will be France's 3rd detection, only 1 of which has been transmitted locally.


The MERS-CoV laboratory confirmed count currently stands at 148 cases with 63 deaths (PFC of 45.6%) .

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