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'Superspreading event' triggers MERS explosion in South Korea
By Kai Kupferschmidt 2 June 2015 2:00 pm
...the Korean patient appears to have infected at least 22 family members, health care workers, and fellow patients at a hospital where he was treated from 15 May to 17 May. ...
The early phase of the disease, just after hospitalization and when symptoms are getting worse, is the time when patients tend to secrete the most virus, says Christian Drosten, a virologist at the University of Bonn in Germany. “We know from Saudi Arabia that the virus can be transmitted during this time if people aren’t careful,” he says. Yet in similar situations, hundreds of exposed contacts did not develop the disease, says Peter Ben Embarek, the point person on MERS at the World Health Organization (WHO). “Why does this happen in one situation and not the other?”
The simplest explanation for the "superspreading event," as scientists call this type of spread, is a lapse in infection control measures at the hospital, Ben Embarek says. The SARS virus, which is distantly related to MERS, is known to have spread widely in 2003 when tubes were placed in patients' airways for mechanical ventilation, a procedure that can cause the virus to become aerosolized. Whether Korea's first patient was intubated is unclear. “We don’t really know what happened during those 3 days,” Ben Embarek says.
Other explanations are being looked at as well. The patient could be carrying a slightly different strain of the virus, or Koreans may be more susceptible to the disease than other populations, Ben Embarek says.
One important piece of evidence will be the genetic sequence of the virus. Ben Embarek says Korea has agreed to share samples with several labs working on MERS, including at Hong Kong University (HKU) in China and Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands...
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http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacif...on-south-korea
By Kai Kupferschmidt 2 June 2015 2:00 pm
...the Korean patient appears to have infected at least 22 family members, health care workers, and fellow patients at a hospital where he was treated from 15 May to 17 May. ...
The early phase of the disease, just after hospitalization and when symptoms are getting worse, is the time when patients tend to secrete the most virus, says Christian Drosten, a virologist at the University of Bonn in Germany. “We know from Saudi Arabia that the virus can be transmitted during this time if people aren’t careful,” he says. Yet in similar situations, hundreds of exposed contacts did not develop the disease, says Peter Ben Embarek, the point person on MERS at the World Health Organization (WHO). “Why does this happen in one situation and not the other?”
The simplest explanation for the "superspreading event," as scientists call this type of spread, is a lapse in infection control measures at the hospital, Ben Embarek says. The SARS virus, which is distantly related to MERS, is known to have spread widely in 2003 when tubes were placed in patients' airways for mechanical ventilation, a procedure that can cause the virus to become aerosolized. Whether Korea's first patient was intubated is unclear. “We don’t really know what happened during those 3 days,” Ben Embarek says.
Other explanations are being looked at as well. The patient could be carrying a slightly different strain of the virus, or Koreans may be more susceptible to the disease than other populations, Ben Embarek says.
One important piece of evidence will be the genetic sequence of the virus. Ben Embarek says Korea has agreed to share samples with several labs working on MERS, including at Hong Kong University (HKU) in China and Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands...
...
http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacif...on-south-korea