Q&A With Saudi Arabia?s Deputy Health Minister on MERS Ahead of Hajj Season

[Shiloh]

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/middleeast/201...health-minister-on-mers-ahead-of-hajj-season/

Q&A With Saudi Arabia?s Deputy Health Minister on MERS Ahead of Hajj Season
Middle East Real Time HOME PAGE ?
By Ellen Knickmeyer


Ziad Memish, the deputy health minister, has been one of Saudi Arabia?s most visible government figures on the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, or MERS, which has sickened more than 130 people in eight countries so far. Saudi Arabia has experienced most of the cases and deaths since the new MERS virus was identified in September 2012.

A specialist in infectious diseases, Dr. Memish has served in advisory groups for the World Health Organization and other international health institutions.

WSJ: How do you feel about the challenge of MERS coming out of the umrah season and into hajj season next month?...

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: Q&A With Saudi Arabia?s Deputy Health Minister on MERS Ahead of Hajj Season

Ellen Knickmeyer who is a reporter for DowJones stationed in Saudi Arabia unfollowed FluTrackers after this exchange on twitter:

Ellen Knickmeyer ‏@EllenKnickmeyer 5h
#Saudi 's deputy health minister on why kingdom's not releasing more info on #MERS cases, and other #MERS questions. http://blogs.wsj.com/middleeast/201...health-minister-on-mers-ahead-of-hajj-season/ …


FluTrackers.com ‏@FluTrackers 1h
@EllenKnickmeyer He claims they are sharing basic epidemiological info with public & WHO.Don't see it in WHO report. So what's the deal? #fb


Ellen Knickmeyer ‏@EllenKnickmeyer 1h
@FluTrackers he said they asked WHO not to share it with the public either.
Retweeted by FluTrackers.com


Ellen Knickmeyer ‏@EllenKnickmeyer 1h
@FluTrackers sorry, i misread that you were asking about the more detailed info.


FluTrackers.com ‏@FluTrackers 53m
@EllenKnickmeyer We want just the basic epi stuff. We advocate for patient privacy. The basic epidemiological stuff is still missing.

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Q&A With Saudi Arabia?s Deputy Health Minister on MERS Ahead of Hajj Season

You know well Sharon! We are too much ignorant for these things...:tiphat: Real journalists see these poor message board members as the paria of the web.

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: Q&A With Saudi Arabia?s Deputy Health Minister on MERS Ahead of Hajj Season

She used to retweet us and now are "off the list"!

lol

We are not part of the establishment. Oh well.... lol

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: Q&A With Saudi Arabia?s Deputy Health Minister on MERS Ahead of Hajj Season

hat tip Shiloh for the link

Friday, 20 September 2013

In a nutshell: Why MERS-CoV data from Saudi Arabia is often limited....


From a Q&A with Dr Ziad Memish, Deputy Health Minister for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia written up by Ellen Knickmeyer of the Wall Street Journal...

?I know that there are some newspapers and news agencies requesting more detailed information. As a public-health officer, I feel strongly this is not acceptable. The news media is not the place to detail the critical information about patients or how many people in the same family got infected, or where they live.​

Speaks for itself really.

It does somewhat miss the point of what many have been asking for (including me). The data would obviously have to be deidentified. A standard practice in for research epidemiology publications and a frequent (usual?) requirement by ethical panels that approve your projects. At least in some States. That would mean leaving out patient and family names (as has been happening to date with MERS, but not so much with H7N9 where to much private information was shared), hospital names and any household addresses.


His subsequent comments outline Dr Memish's view of a minimal publically available dataset...

What needs to be given to the public is positive case, the age, the sex, the location and if there?s anything unusual about increased spread or a new event that has not been reported in the past.​

This doesn't explain why it take so long to hear of a MERS-CoV death when the KSA has a daily-updated (at 5pm!), coronavirus-specific, public health announcement website. Presumably testing is slower than we thought or samples are not being collected for MERS-CoV testing often enough? Who knows? It also doesn't explain why data content varies from post-to-post.

Despite this, and I agree that patient details should be kept private, my list of details to help out global public health officials, amended from an posted earlier, is...

1. A unique, continuous identifying code specific to this emerging virus
2. Sex
3. Age
4. Possible exposures <strike>Occupation</strike>
5. Co-morbidities
6. Date of illness onset
7. <strike>Town of illness onset </strike>[for internal and collabortaive investiagtion]
8. <strike>Town of acquisition acquisition </strike>[for internal and collabortaive investiagtion]
9. Date of hospitalisation
10. Type of laboratory testing
11. Date of laboratory confirmation
12. Date of death
13. Date of release from hospital
14. Treatments/management
15. <strike>Town of treatment </strike>[for internal and collabortaive investiagtion]
16. Relationships to any other cases

Posted by Ian M Mackay