Understanding Middle East Respiratory Syndrome: Causes, Symptoms, and Prevention

2024-05-11 11:30:29

What is Middle East Respiratory Syndrome?

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome is a viral respiratory illness caused by the Corona virus and was first discovered in Saudi Arabia in 2012.

The coronavirus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome is a zoonotic virus, meaning it is transmitted between animals and humans. It has been shown to be associated with human infection in camels in several Member States in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.

Epidemiologist Dr. Ahmed Al-Tassa confirms that Middle East Syndrome is one of the types of Corona and its origin, like all other Corona species, is from bats, but it has been transmitted to camels before being transmitted to humans.

Al-Tassa explains in a statement to the Al-Hurra website that the latest wave of this syndrome “has been very serious, more so than the Covid-19 we have witnessed” and is causing high mortality rates.

Nearly 35 percent of MERS cases reported to the World Health Organization have died.

Globally, 2,204 cases and 860 deaths have been recorded, according to the same source. The vast majority, more than 80 percent, were recorded in Saudi Arabia.

Typical symptoms of this disease include fever, cough and shortness of breath. Pneumonia is common, but patients with Middle East respiratory syndrome do not always develop this health problem. Gastrointestinal symptoms, including diarrhea, have also been reported in patients with Middle East respiratory syndrome.

Human-to-human transmission remains possible and occurs primarily between close contacts and in healthcare settings. Outside of health care settings, human-to-human transmission has been limited, according to the United Nations.

Regarding the mode of transmission of this syndrome, the medical expert said that it is similar to what we know regarding the Corona virus, but that due to its great severity it represents a “serious problem for medical teams” .

He added that if a large number of medical teams were infected and mortality rates were high, it would cause great panic among these teams, especially if they were not equipped as planned, leading to an accumulation of cases of patients.

Al-Tassa does not expect the current spread to be similar to previous waves, attributing this to health systems and teams, particularly in Gulf countries, who now have expertise and experience in managing the spread. question of epidemics and viruses.

However, he said the problem lies with any virus surge linked to the variants, as we don’t know whether it will be deadlier or not.

The health expert added that the World Health Organization “expects that a new global disease or virus will arise in one way or another”, and the question is not more regarding whether it will happen or not, but rather its timing and the question “when?” »

The same spokesperson said that the questions raised are whether the upcoming viruses, whether Middle East Syndrome or others, will have a higher severity than Corona, because in this scenario, we will also talk regarding high death rates.

Professor of clinical pharmacotherapy at the University of Petra, Dr Dirar Hassan Balawi, said the transmission of Middle East syndrome “is not rapid and its ability to mutate is slow”, unlike the Covid-19 virus which caused the Corona pandemic.

Balawi added that the cases appearing in Saudi Arabia remain very few, because over a period of regarding 7 or 8 months, there have been regarding 4 cases of infection, which means that the virus is under control, which indicates that expectations anticipated the emergence of these new cases. case.

Although several MERS treatments and vaccines are in clinical development, unlike Covid-19, none have undergone clinical trials and been approved by regulators.

In this regard, Balawi said in a statement to the Al-Hurra website that to date there is no vaccine or treatment available for this disease, indicating that there have been researches and studies, but that due to the small number of cases recorded, they were not carried out. been completed.

In this regard, Al-Tassa said it is too early to know how the virus is spreading, noting that in previous cases the spread was linked to camels, following the virus was transmitted to them through camels. ‘a bat, and that the role of the animal was the transmitter to humans.

He added that the virus might have infected a specific predatory animal and a person would have eaten it, for example, without cooking it or handling it closely. Therefore, studies and research continue to discover its source and control it, but this. It is only a matter of time as each case is tracked to find the ground zero from where the disease started.

For his part, Dr Balawi said transmission does not always occur through direct contact with camels. On the contrary, infected people may have been in contact with infected people and transmitted the infection to them, emphasizing that this “created a state of alert”. in Saudi Arabia to track and trace contacts in order to inventory all cases.

1715440542
#Victims #Saudi #Arabia #Middle #East #syndrome