MERS outbreak
The virus, which causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), is a novel coronavirus that was first identified in a patient from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on 6 June 2012.
[10][notes 1] The Fourth Meeting of the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee concerning MERS-CoV was held on 4 December 2013.
The committee decided that the conditions for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) had not at present been met.
[15] On 8 November 2012, in an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Zaki and co-authors from the Erasmus Medical Center published more details, including a scientific name, Human Coronavirus-Erasmus Medical Center (HCoV-EMC), which was then used in scientific literature.
[18] This gender disparity may have been because most women in Saudi Arabia wear veils that cover the mouth and nose, decreasing their chances of being exposed to the virus (although a previous study found that veils were not effective for this purpose), or it may be due to the prevalent gender segregation in that society.
[19] Saudi officials expressed great concern that millions of Muslims from around the world would potentially be exposed to the virus during the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.
[25] According to a European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) publication, in April 2014, Tunisia had a total of 3 cases with 1 fatality.
[30] A second case was detected on 8 September 2018 of a South Korean man who was traveling from the Middle East, being the first diagnosis in that country since the 2015 outbreak.
[31] There were also hundreds of suspected cases in the United States and other parts of the world, most of which were eventually diagnosed as not being MERS infections.
[34] The person was a 54-year-old man who had traveled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, together with pilgrimage group composed of 18 people, from 15 to 28 March 2014.
[35] On 11 May 2014, two people in Medan were suspected infected by MERS-Cov (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome-Corona Virus).
[36] On 16 April 2014, an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) who returned from Al Ain City, United Arab Emirates was found positive for MERS-CoV at Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
[39][40] On 11 February 2015, a 32-year-old Filipino nurse from Saudi Arabia, who was also 1 month pregnant, was the country's first MERS-CoV case, DOH confirmed after the test for the virus turned out to be positive.
[41] The Evangelista Medical Hospital in San Pedro, Laguna, the facility where the patient was first admitted, was temporarily closed by DOH for fourteen days.
[42] On 6 March 2015, The Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed that three Filipino female healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia were infected with MERS-CoV.
[46] The first known case of a previously unknown coronavirus was identified in a 60-year-old Saudi Arabian man with acute pneumonia, who died of kidney failure in Jeddah on 20 June 2012.
[53] The delays in obtaining data and absence of basic information (which would usefully include: sex, age, other medical conditions and smoking status) were noted and decried by Dr. Margaret Chan and in Pro-Med comments on numerous briefings.
[21] On 1 August 2013, the World Health Organization announced three new MERS-CoV cases in that Saudi Arabia, all of them in women, two of whom were healthcare workers.
[57] The patients were one woman and two men and "all had underlying medical conditions but all reported having had no contact with animals before falling ill".
[citation needed] On 18 June 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that there were 75 laboratory-confirmed MERS cases in Saudi Arabia.
[62][63] The Saudi government asked "elderly and chronically ill Muslims to avoid the hajj this year" and restricted the number of people allowed "to perform the pilgrimage".
[62] However, the Spanish government, in November 2013, reported a woman in Spain, who had recently traveled to Saudi Arabia for the Islamic pilgrimage, contracted the disease.
[74] Four days later, on 4 June 2014, the Ministry of Health reported that 3 more people including a doctor and a nurse who came in contact with the deceased patient were suspected to have contracted the disease.
[citation needed] On 7 May 2013, a case was confirmed in Nord departement of France in a man who had previously traveled to Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
[84] The man's son, whom he visited in the hospital in Birmingham, was immuno-suppressed because of a brain tumour, and contracted the virus, providing the first clear evidence for person-to-person transmission.
[89][90][91][92][93] Another patient who had been in Guys and St Thomas hospital in the UK since September 2012 after visiting the Middle East died on 28 June 2013.
A spokesperson for the hospital stated that "Guys and St Thomas can confirm that the patient with severe respiratory illness due to novel coronavirus (MERS-COV) died on Friday 28 June, after his condition deteriorated despite every effort and full supportive treatment.
"[94] As of April 2014, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reported a total of 4 cases in the United Kingdom, 3 of which were fatalities.
The man diagnosed was a healthcare worker who had been in Saudi Arabia a week earlier, and was reported to be in good condition.
