June 9, 2015

SOUTH KOREA TO FOCUS ON PNEUMONIA PATIENTS AMID BID TO CONTAIN MERS

Posted by The Himalayan Voice:
[The government said that on Wednesday it would interview all hospitalized pneumonia patients and also check their medical records to see if they had recently visited any of the hospitals where the infection had been found. South Korea’s first MERS case, a 68-year-old man who had traveled to Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries, was discovered to have the virus on May 20.]

Wearing protective masks in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday. The spread of MERS
in South Korea is the biggest reported outside Saudi Arabia.
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea said on Tuesday that it would investigate all hospitalized pneumonia patients to determine whether they had been exposed to Middle East respiratory syndrome, as it struggled to contain an outbreak of the virus that has infected 95 people in the country and killed seven.
The outbreak of the virus, known as MERS, in South Korea is the largest reported outside Saudi Arabia, where more than 440 people have died of the disease since it was discovered there in 2012. MERS symptoms are similar to those of pneumonia.
Although a vast majority of MERS patients in South Korea were infected in two hospitals, cases have also been found in seven other hospitals in Seoul, the capital, and elsewhere.
Nearly 2,900 people who had been near any of the confirmed cases had been isolated as of Tuesday, to be monitored for symptoms by the government. More than 2,200 schools remained closed.
The government said that on Wednesday it would interview all hospitalized pneumonia patients and also check their medical records to see if they had recently visited any of the hospitals where the infection had been found. South Korea’s first MERS case, a 68-year-old man who had traveled to Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries, was discovered to have the virus on May 20.
Interviewing pneumonia patients is intended “to find any suspected case we have missed and to prevent a further spread of the virus,” the Health Ministry said in a statement. “Once we find a suspected patient, we will move him into a one-bed room and run a DNA test to determine if he carries the MERS virus.”
The government announced the plan after acknowledging it had failed to isolate some suspected cases soon enough. On Tuesday, four new MERS cases were found in three hospitals that had not been on the government list of infected hospitals.
On Tuesday, Hong Kong issued a “red alert” travel warning for South Korea, while the World Health Organization began work on a joint mission with South Korean doctors and officials to assess the outbreak in the country and review the government response.
The travel alert “advises Hong Kong residents to avoid nonessential travel to Korea, including leisure travel,” the Hong Kong government said in a statement. It advised those already in South Korea to “avoid unnecessary visits to health care facilities.”
Hong Kong has been sensitive to infectious diseases since the outbreak of SARS in 2003, which killed hundreds of people.
Also on Tuesday, the airline Cathay Pacific, which is based in Hong Kong, and its subsidiary, Dragonair, said they would waive fees for people to rebook travel to South Korea from Hong Kong, given the travel alert.

@ The New York Times


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MIDDLE EAST RESPIRATORY SYNDROME CORONAVIRUS(MERS-COV) – SAUDI ARABIA

Disease outbreak news 
4 June 2015
Between 26 and 30 May 2015, the National IHR Focal Point for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia notified WHO of 9 additional cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection, including 4 deaths.

Details of the cases are as follows:

  • A 43-year-old male from Hofuf city developed symptoms on 27 May while admitted to hospital since 21 May due to an unrelated medical condition. The patient, who has comorbidities, tested positive for MERS-CoV on 28 May. Currently, he is in critical condition in ICU. Investigation of history of exposure to known risk factors in the 14 days prior to the onset of symptoms is ongoing.
  • A 50-year-old female from Hofuf city developed symptoms on 28 May while admitted to hospital since 8 May due to unrelated medical conditions. The patient, who had comorbidities, tested positive for MERS-CoV on 29 May. She passed away on 29 May. Investigation of history of exposure to known risk factors in the 14 days prior to the onset of symptoms is ongoing.
  • A 48-year-old male from Hofuf city developed symptoms on 23 May while admitted to hospital since 4 May due to an unrelated medical condition. The patient, who has no comorbidities, tested positive for MERS-CoV on 28 May. Currently, he is in stable condition in a negative pressure isolation room on a ward. Investigation of history of exposure to known risk factors in the 14 days prior to the onset of symptoms is ongoing.
  • A 57-year-old female from Hofuf city developed symptoms on 24 May while admitted to hospital since 20 May due to an unrelated medical condition. The patient, who had comorbidities, tested positive for MERS-CoV on 28 May. She passed away on 31 May. Investigation of history of exposure to known risk factors in the 14 days prior to the onset of symptoms is ongoing.
  • A 74-year-old male from Taif city developed symptoms on 27 May while admitted to hospital since 17 May due to an unrelated medical condition. The patient, who has comorbidities, tested positive for MERS-CoV on 28 May. Between 21 and 23 May, he was admitted to the same ward and attended by the same health workers as a laboratory-confirmed MERS-CoV case (case n. 9 – see below). The patient has no history of exposure to other known risk factors in the 14 days prior to the onset of symptoms. Currently, he is in stable condition in a negative pressure isolation room on a ward.
  • A 70-year-old male from Hofuf city developed symptoms on 27 May while admitted to hospital since 20 May due to unrelated medical conditions. The patient, who had comorbidities, tested positive for MERS-CoV on 28 May. Between 18 and 20 May, he was admitted to the same ward as a laboratory-confirmed MERS-CoV case that was reported in a previous DON on 25 May (case n. 2). Investigation of whether they were attended by the same health workers is ongoing. The patient had no history of exposure to other known risk factors in the 14 days prior to the onset of symptoms. He passed away on 30 May.
  • A 27-year-old, non-national female from Hofuf city developed symptoms on 22 May while admitted to hospital since 18 May due to an unrelated medical condition. The patient, who has no comorbidities, tested positive for MERS-CoV on 28 May. She was admitted to the same room as a laboratory-confirmed MERS-CoV case that was reported in a previous DON on 1 June (case n. 2). Investigation of whether they were attended by the same health workers is ongoing. The patient has no history of exposure to other known risk factors in the 14 days prior to the onset of symptoms. Currently, she is in critical condition in ICU.
  • A 26-year-old, non-national, female health worker from Hofuf city developed symptoms on 26 May and was admitted to hospital on 27 May. The patient, who has no comorbidities, tested positive for MERS-CoV on 28 May. Between 22 and 23 May, she provided care to a laboratory-confirmed MERS-CoV case that was reported in a previous DON on 25 May (case n. 2). The patient has no history of exposure to other known risk factors in the 14 days prior to the onset of symptoms. Currently, she is in stable condition in a negative pressure isolation room on a ward.
  • A 65-year-old male from Taif city developed symptoms on 20 May and was admitted to a hospital in Taif on the same day. The patient, who has comorbidities, tested positive for MERS-CoV on 25 May. He has a history of contact with camels and consumption of raw camel milk. The patient has no history of exposure to other known risk factors in the 14 days prior to the onset of symptoms. He passed away on 30 May 2015.
Contact tracing of household and healthcare contacts is ongoing for these cases.
The National IHR Focal Point for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also notified WHO of the death of 2 previously reported MERS-CoV cases. The cases were reported in previous DONs on 25 May (case n. 2) and on 17 May (case n. 3).
Globally, since September 2012, WHO has been notified of 1164 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with MERS-CoV, including at least 440 related deaths.

WHO advice

Based on the current situation and available information, WHO encourages all Member States to continue their surveillance for acute respiratory infections and to carefully review any unusual patterns.
Infection prevention and control measures are critical to prevent the possible spread of MERS-CoV in health care facilities. It 
is not always possible to identify patients with MERS-CoV early because like other respiratory infections, the early symptoms of MERS-CoV are non-specific. Therefore, health-care workers should always apply standard precautions consistently with all patients, regardless of their diagnosis. Droplet precautions should be added to the standard precautions when providing care to patients with symptoms of acute respiratory infection; contact precautions and eye protection should be added when caring for probable or confirmed cases of MERS-CoV infection; airborne precautions should be applied when performing aerosol generating procedures.
Until more is understood about MERS-CoV, people with diabetes, renal failure, chronic lung disease, and immunocompromised persons are considered to be at high risk of severe disease from MERS‐CoV infection. Therefore, these people should avoid close contact with animals, particularly camels, when visiting farms, markets, or barn areas where the virus is known to be potentially circulating. General hygiene measures, such as regular hand washing before and after touching animals and avoiding contact with sick animals, should be adhered to.
Food hygiene practices should be observed. People should avoid drinking raw camel milk or camel urine, or eating meat that has not been properly cooked.
WHO does not advise special screening at points of entry with regard to this event nor does it currently recommend the application of any travel or trade restrictions. 

 @ World Health Organization