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Sunday, May 18, 2014

World Health Organization: MERS transmission now serious concern

microscopic_virus
Microscopic picture of virus | PHOTO CREDIT: Wiki Commons

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is a serious concern, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), but that doesn’t mean that everyone is taking it seriously.

BIRMINGHAM, UK, May 17, 2014 — The World Health Organization (WHO) met this week to discuss the impact of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) on public health. Their conclusion was that the spread of the MERS corona-virus – which has a fatality rate of almost 30 per cent - has become more serious and urgent.
However, at the same time, WHO said that – for now, at least – the illness does not constitute a global health emergency. “Declaring an emergency is “a major act” that can “raise anxieties,” said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the organization’s assistant director-general for health security. “Despite concerns about the syndrome, researchers have not found any increasing evidence of person-to-person transmissibility,” he said.
From the CNN website:
There have been 571 confirmed cases of MERS, including 171 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. The number of countries with confirmed cases expanded to 18, with a case in the Netherlands, WHO reported Wednesday.
Many of the cases are in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Even without any official worldwide alert, Anne Schuchat, the head of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, acknowledges that “this is a relatively new virus that does have a high fatality rate,”
Authorities haven’t pinned down all the details about how exactly it arose and how it spreads, though Schuchat said, “we don’t have evidence right now that this is airborne … the way the measles virus is.”
“We don’t know as much as we would like so far,” the CDC official and assistant surgeon general in the U.S. Public Health Service told CNN’s Brooke Baldwin on Wednesday. “… But we’re tracking it and trying to understand.”
While the evidence is by no means conclusive, there remains a strong probability that the virus is transmitted to humans by camels. One particular study carried out on Omani camels showed a 100 percent presence of the antibodies developed specifically in response to the MERS corona-virus. Residents of some of the Middle Eastern countries affected, however, show little concern for the possible implications, continuing to organise camel competitions and beauty contests in the United Arab Emirates, and in some cases, as in Saudi Arabia, defiantly posting images of themselves kissing camels on social media.
So why is this important?
Well, for several reasons. MERS is a virus from the same family as SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed nearly 800 people worldwide after it first appeared in China in 2002. Like SARS, the virus causes a lung infection, coughing and breathing difficulties, and fever. Additionally, MERS can also lead to rapid kidney failure. There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments for MERS. The disease kills approximately 30 per cent of those infected.
In addition, we are now starting to see incidences of MERS infection in the United States, from people who have recently visited Saudi Arabia. Given that Saudi Arabia attracts millions of people from around the world every year for the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, the probability of the virus spreading beyond the Arabian peninsula increases exponentially, especially if there are no border controls set up to identify travelers who may have an increased risk of infection.

Thirdly, despite the reassurances of Dr. Keiji Fukuda of the WHO, who does not want to declare a global health emergency in case it would “raise anxieties”, it might just be a good idea to heed the maxim “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Although not much is known about this particular virus, one characteristic of viruses is that they mutate, and what could be a relatively harmless virus one day has the capacity to change into something very nasty indeed.

Last but not least, we have the uncomfortable reality that cases of the MERS corona-virus – at the moment – constitute a phenomenon that if not actually exclusive to Muslim countries, is certainly predominant within them. Given the social environment of the twin evils of political correctness and multiculturalism that has been written about in these pages recently, it is possible that serious efforts to prevent a worldwide pandemic could be hindered by cries of “Islamophobia” and “racism” from those on the political spectrum blinded by their own self-righteousness to the point where they become willing to place thousands, if not millions of lives at risk.  http://www.brennerbrief.com/world-health-organization-mers-transmission-now-serious-concern/