Can SARS lessons prevent a MERS virus outbreak?

[tetano]

Hong Kong (CNN) -- Hong Kong generally gets a bad rap when it comes to infectious diseases.

Grabbing headlines during recent bird- and swine-flu outbreaks, its proximity to Mainland China as well as its unenviable status as the worst-affected city during the 2003 SARS outbreak, Hong Kong has been central to several global pandemic fears in recent years.

It hasn't even escaped fictional outbreaks -- the 2011 movie "Contagion" had patient zero Gwyneth Paltrow bring back an unwelcome souvenir from a business trip to the city.

But this bad biological baggage may come in handy.

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http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/01/h...paign=Feed:+rss/cnn_latest+(RSS:+Most+Recent)

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Can SARS lessons prevent a MERS virus outbreak?

This is NOT A MOVIE!

SARS-CoV is quite different from MERS-CoV.

The two pathogens cannot be compared because of different viral mechanism, pathogenicity, epidemiological behaviour, animal sources, environmental resistance to physical agents etc.

Continuing comparison between the two viruses and related outbreaks are thus misleading.

This is not a fictional situation and suggestions from blockbusters movies are quite useless.

Much remains to be undestood about the new MERS-CoV, but something is know: for example, so far, ALL EXPORTED CASES HAVEN'T PRODUCED LOCAL OUTBREAKS!

Please, stop making fiction and start to view things as they are developing!