SARS revisited? Sharp jump in cases, hospital outbreaks raise MERS concerns

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Source: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/sars-revisited-sharp-jump-cases-hospital-outbreaks-raise-221334358.html


SARS revisited? Sharp jump in cases, hospital outbreaks raise MERS concerns
The Canadian PressBy Helen Branswell, The Canadian Press | The Canadian Press ? 24 minutes ago


TORONTO - It?s beginning to feel like SARS revisited.

For some of the scientists and doctors who helped the world battle the 2003 SARS outbreak, the recent rapid rise in human infections in several Middle Eastern countries caused by a cousin virus is creating a sense of sharp unease.

Cases of Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome ? MERS ? have shot up markedly in the past month, driven it appears by outbreaks in hospitals or among health-care workers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.

"It does kind of bring flashbacks to SARS when we're seeing more health-care associated infections. Obviously that was a big challenge here in Toronto," says Dr. Kamran Khan, an infectious diseases physician at Toronto's St. Michael's Hospital who specializes in using airline traffic data to predict the international movement of diseases...

 

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Re: SARS revisited? Sharp jump in cases, hospital outbreaks raise MERS concerns

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/middleeast/2014/04/20/concerns-spread-as-new-saudi-mers-cases-spike/

3:27 pm ET
Apr 20, 2014
Culture
Concerns Spread as New Saudi MERS Cases Spike
By
Ellen Knickmeyer and Ahmed Al Omran

Some Saudi ambulance crews refused to transport suspected victims, while drugstores are fast selling out of protective face masks ? as the toll of a lethal new viral disease continues its steep month-long climb in Saudi Arabia.

As angry complaints soared, Saudi health officials confirmed 42 new cases of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus, or MERS-CoV, in the kingdom over the last week, seven of them fatal...

...Over the weekend, the kingdom?s official Red Crescent health service announced that ambulance crews had no choice but carry suspected MERS cases.

That was after an audio recording circulated on social media of ambulance workers reportedly refusing to carry a man believed ill with MERS. ?Just put a double layer of masks on,? the dispatcher told the workers, who stuck to their refusal.

On social media, doctors and nurses tweeted of growing numbers of colleagues sickened. Some accused the Health Ministry of concealing the true number of cases, and playing down the overall severity of the outbreak. ?Health Minister: You have to at least declare an emergency?so it is possible to activate the protocols of infection,? one Jeddah doctor tweeted. ?We don?t want to lose more souls.?

On Saturday, Saudi Arabia?s Okaz newspaper carried what it said was a notice from the Health Ministry threatening health workers with prison for disclosing any health ministry information. That followed a Cabinet order last week, directing Saudi news media to quote only official sources on the disease.

With the report of a gag order on Saudi health workers, ?people are past fury, and looking for ways of protection,? one Jeddah woman said by email. Like many, she was tweeting advice to fellow Saudis at large on protective measures against MERS, and urging public reporting of any price-gouging on remaining supplies of face masks...