Earlier this month, I noted that the World Health Organization (WHO) did not report information on five MERS cases from Saudi Arabia from October (see Has WHO overlooked 5 MERS cases in Saudi Arabia?), although theses cases were counted in the world-wide total in the Disease Outbreak News posted on November 7, 2014 (link).
Two days ago, the WHO provided additional details about these five cases (link) that are not available on the statistics page of the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health website. The reporting of these additional case details is important to understanding the nature of human MERS infections.
Since, the last WHO update on MERS from Saudi Arabia (through October 30, 2014), the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health website has reported almost 20 new MERS cases (link),. Hopefully, WHO will publish details about these cases soon as well.
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Has WHO overlooked 5 MERS cases in Saudi Arabia?
Previously, I discussed discrepancies between the MERS case
counts for the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Centre for
Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) (link).
The WHO case count differed from the number posted on the Saudi Arabia Ministry
of Health website by 15 cases. At least 12 cases previously announced by the
Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health had not yet been posted in Disease Outbreak News by the WHO through October 21, 2014.
Yesterday the WHO reported in aggregate 12 new MERS cases
from Saudi Arabia from the period October 18 to October 26, 2014 (link). These 12
cases do not equate to the 12-case differential noted in my previous post. The most
recent WHO report regarding cases from Saudi Arabia (October 16 link)
only enumerates cases through October 11, 2014. However, between October 12 and
October 16, the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health website announced five additional
MERS cases, Taif (3), Riyadh (1), and Al Karj (1).
Hopefully, the WHO will
report these cases in the future or discuss why they are not included in the
total count for MERS cases from around the world.
Links to five Saudi Arabia MERS Cases (October 12-16)
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