Gert van der Hoek
In Memoriam - Editor, Senior Moderator
MERS: most people never even knew they had it
june 7, 2015
A study in Saudi Arabia of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome reveals that about 40,000 people have probably been infected with it. Many were not aware they had it, but they are now immune to further exposure.
As South Korea desperately tries to stem a Mers outbreak that has so far killed five people and infected 64, a new study reveals that 40,000 people in Saudi Arabia have probably contracted the virus in the past decade.
Yet most of these people will never even know they had it, or that they now have antibodies making them immune to further exposure to Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.
This is the first large-scale population study, as scientists continue to assess whether Mers could follow other coronaviruses (a species of virus) such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or Sars, which killed 8,000 between 2002 and 2003.
It is three years since the first case of Mers was reported and the World Health Organisation still describes it as: ?A newly emerging disease that remains poorly understood.?
While the death toll, at about 450, remains low compared with that of Sars, to scientists “poorly understood” translates as potentially very dangerous.
“The resolution of the picture we have is still quite coarse,” says Prof Christian Drosten, one of the authors of the study Presence of Mers Coronavirus Antibodies in Saudi Arabia: a Nationwide, Cross-sectional, Serological Study, published in The Lancet. “We don’t have the very clear picture about the number of mild or asymptomatic cases in the community.”
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june 7, 2015
A study in Saudi Arabia of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome reveals that about 40,000 people have probably been infected with it. Many were not aware they had it, but they are now immune to further exposure.
As South Korea desperately tries to stem a Mers outbreak that has so far killed five people and infected 64, a new study reveals that 40,000 people in Saudi Arabia have probably contracted the virus in the past decade.
Yet most of these people will never even know they had it, or that they now have antibodies making them immune to further exposure to Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.
This is the first large-scale population study, as scientists continue to assess whether Mers could follow other coronaviruses (a species of virus) such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or Sars, which killed 8,000 between 2002 and 2003.
It is three years since the first case of Mers was reported and the World Health Organisation still describes it as: ?A newly emerging disease that remains poorly understood.?
While the death toll, at about 450, remains low compared with that of Sars, to scientists “poorly understood” translates as potentially very dangerous.
“The resolution of the picture we have is still quite coarse,” says Prof Christian Drosten, one of the authors of the study Presence of Mers Coronavirus Antibodies in Saudi Arabia: a Nationwide, Cross-sectional, Serological Study, published in The Lancet. “We don’t have the very clear picture about the number of mild or asymptomatic cases in the community.”
More:
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