Confronting the persisting threat of the Middle East respiratory syndrome to global health security

Key Strategies to Address Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases: A Systematic Analysis

“…A truly comprehensive EID response system requires system-wide coordination, ongoing surveillance systems throughout the world, strengthening healthcare resources (personnel, medications, facilities, etc. ), social, behavior, and change interventions, and the integration of appropriate diagnostics into prevention and control plans [14,15,18]. Ten different results (33.3%) stressed the importance of tailored EID surveillance strategy that would prevent and mitigate EID outbreaks [11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21].…”

“…While these breakdown points are common across many settings, preparedness and response activities must be contextualized to specifics of the disease and setting. Communication and capacity are constant across this cycle-an area that requires constant engagement and learning [14,35,40,27,39]. Communication strategies should also be tailored to fit local context and cultural settings [13].…”

COVID-19 and the scaled-down 2020 Hajj Pilgrimage—Decisive, logical and prudent decision making by Saudi authorities overcomes pre-Hajj public health concerns

“…The ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, yet once again, highlights the continuing threat of new emerging infectious diseases with epidemic potential, including the persistent threat of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) ( Perlman et al, 2020 , Memish et al, 2020b ), to global health security. As of 2nd August 2020, there have been 17,660,523 confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, including 275,905 cases from Saudi Arabia.…”

MERS-CoV in Africa—an enigma with relevance to COVID-19

“…COVID-19 and MERS provide unique opportunities for African and Middle Eastern countries with relevant stakeholders to align and synergise ongoing COVID-19 and MERS surveillance, diagnostics, vaccine development, and evaluation, with basic science and translational research activities. 1 , 10 African and Middle Eastern countries must invest more in surveillance and urgent priority research to fill major knowledge gaps in the epidemiology, transmission, pathogenesis, and evolution of MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, especially because they are co-circulating. The need for an effective One Human-Environmental-Animal Health multidisciplinary consortium across Africa, Middle East, and Asia to tackle the ever-present threat of lethal coronaviruses and other emerging infections remains a global priority.…”

“…The need for an effective One Human-Environmental-Animal Health multidisciplinary consortium across Africa, Middle East, and Asia to tackle the ever-present threat of lethal coronaviruses and other emerging infections remains a global priority. 10 …”