Outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus in Saudi Arabia: a retrospective study

Abstract

BackgroundThe Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is proposed to be a zoonotic disease. Dromedary camels have been implicated due to reports that some confirmed cases were exposed to camels. Risk factors for MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infections in humans are incompletely understood. This study aimed to describe the demographic characteristics, mortality rate, clinical manifestations and comorbidities with confirmed cases of MERS-CoV.MethodsRetrospective chart review were performed to identify all laboratory-confirmed cases of MERS-CoV in Saudi Arabia who reported to the Ministry of Health (MOH) of Saudi Arabia and WHO between April 23, 2014 and August 31, 2015. Patients’ charts were also reviewed for demographic information, mortality, comorbidities, clinical presentations, health care facility and presented with descriptive and comparative statistics using non parametric binomial test and Chi-square test.ResultsConfirmed cases of male patients (61.1%) exceeded those of female patients (38.9%). Infections among Saudi patients (62.6%) exceeded those among non-Saudi patients (37.4%; P = 0.001). The majority of the patients were aged 21–40 years (37.4%) or 41–60 years (35.8%); 43 (22.6%) were aged >61 years, and (8) 4.2% were aged 0–20 years. There was a difference in mortality between confirmed MERS-CoV cases (63.7% alive versus 36.3% dead cases, respectively). Furthermore, fever with cough and shortness of breath (SOB) (n = 39; 20.5%), fever with cough (n = 29; 15.3%), fever (n = 18; 9.5%), and fever with SOB (n = 13; 6.8%), were the most common clinical manifestations associated with confirmed MERS-CoV cases.ConclusionMERS-CoV is considered an epidemic in Saudi Arabia. The results of the present study showed that the frequency of cases is higher among men than women, in Saudi patients than non-Saudi, and those between 21 to 60 years are most affected. Further studies are required to improve the surveillance associated with MERS-CoV to get definite and clear answers and better understanding of the MERS-CoV outbreak as well the source, and route of infection transmission in Saudi Arabia.

Identifying factors and target preventive therapies for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome sucsibtable patients

“…Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) a respiratory disease caused by a novel coronavirus that was identified in 2012 in Saudi Arabia (Aleanizy et al, 2017;Assiri et al, 2013;Raj et al, 2013). It is associated with a 35% mortality rate, primarily due to multiorgan failure (Rivers et al, 2016;Zumla et al, 2015).…”

A human behavior integrated hierarchical model of airborne disease transmission in a large city

“…According to the data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from April 12, 2009, to April 10, 2010, approximately 60.8 million H1N1 cases and 12,469 deaths occurred in the United States [2]. The Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) also causes severe respiratory illness with a high case-fatality rate in humans [3]. As of July 21, 2017, it had attacked 27 countries and induced 2040 cases, including at least 712 deaths [4].…”

Early identification of pneumonia patients at increased risk of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus infection in Saudi Arabia

“…Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012. The diagnosis of this infection remains complex (Al Johani and Hajeer, 2016;Sung et al, 2016;Ahmed, 2017a) and it has a high fatality rate (Ahmed, 2017b, c;Aleanizy et al, 2017;Sherbini et al, 2017;Kim et al, 2017). The early detection and identification of individuals at high risk of a disease is the most effective strategy to improve patient clinical outcomes (Ahmed, 2017a) and reduce the costs of testing, both physical and economic (Ahmed et al, 2011(Ahmed et al, , 2013.…”