New virus Mers, which as yet has killed 1/2 of those it infected, isn’t likely to reach same scale like Sars, according to Saudi Arabia ministers.
Most of 90 cases of Mers reported till now were iin this country.
This virus happens to be from same viruses’ group as Sars and common cold, which killed about 774 people.
Anyway, detailed Saudi cases analysis, published in the Diseases Lancet Infectious , warned of some significant gaps in the understanding of virus.
Mers, abbreviatd for Middle East Respiratory-Syndrome coronavirus emerged during 2012 and it has infected ninety people worldwide, out of which 45 have died.
Global concern basically is that the cases can further spread much, echoing the outbreak of Sars.
The cases were centred on Middle East – the patients being from Jordan, Qatar, U.A.E and Saudi Arabia. Additional cases reported in France, Italy, Tunisia, UK and Germany all are linked to travelling to Middle East.
The researchers of Saudi Arabia published the details of 47 cases that were reported in country.
They show a pattern according to which mostly the older men are infected. Majority of cases also were in the people who had other problems medically, more than 2/3rd of reported cases had diabetes as well.
According to lead researcher as well as Public Health’s Deputy Minister, Prof Ziad Memish, “In contrast to Sars, which was much more infectious especially in healthcare settings and affected the healthier and the younger age group, Mers appears to be more deadly, with 60% of patients with co-existing chronic illnesses dying, compared with the 1% toll of Sars.”
They also said that although the high rate of mortality associated with Mers tends to be probably spurious because we only are picking up the severe cases but missing on an important number of the asymptomatic or milder cases. It was also said that so far there’s little that could indicate that this virus would follow the same path as Sers.
One report earlier in this month attempted to show that this virus struggled for spreading in people.
Anyway, this and as well as the new Saudi investigation have highlighted need to search where this virus happened to be coming from.
Report of Prof Memish said that reducing rate of Mers coronavirus’ introduction in human beings tends to be unpredictable as virus source isn’t known yet and that they were searching for source vigorously.
