Vox - MERS Watchhttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2014-05-28T20:47:48-04:00http://www.vox.com/rss/stream/54949472014-05-28T20:47:48-04:002014-05-28T20:47:48-04:00MERS person-to-person leap in US wasn't real
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<p>The CDC announced today that the only person who seemed to have contracted MERS from a patient within the US actually never caught the virus at all.</p>
<p>The agency found this out from a more definitive type of MERS test.</p>
<p>This means that no one who has had MERS in the US has passed it on to anyone else, or at least not that we know of. As of right now, there are no people infected with MERS in the US, although cases continue to add up abroad.</p>
<p>You can read more about this latest news in CIDRAP's coverage <a href="http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/05/secondary-us-mers-case-ruled-out-saudi-count-grows">here</a>.</p>
<p><span>For </span><b style="background-color: #f1f3f2;"><i>Vox</i></b><span>'s StoryStream of past and future MERS coverage, click </span><a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/19/5730906/mers-watch" sl-processed="1" style="background-color: #f1f3f2;">here</a><span>.</span></p>
https://www.vox.com/2014/5/28/5759650/mers-person-to-person-leap-in-us-was-false-positiveSusannah Locke2014-05-23T10:54:19-04:002014-05-23T10:54:19-04:00The interactive world map of MERS
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<p><span>The unofficial, interactive world MERS map </span><a style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;" href="http://coronamap.com/">coronamap.com</a><span> seems to be keeping up with MERS cases, including stats from both the World Health Organization and local health ministries. </span></p>
<p><span>One of its most helpful features is that it clearly distinguishes between cases where people have recovered and are no longer a threat to public health (green) and ones where people are still sick and possibly infectious (red).</span></p>
<p><img alt="Screen_shot_2014-05-23_at_10.42.47_am" class="photo" src="http://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/assets/4499449/Screen_Shot_2014-05-23_at_10.42.47_AM.png"></p>
<p class="caption">Red numbers are MERS cases where people are still infected. Blue zeros represent places where people who had been infected have since recovered and therefore can't spread the virus. CoronaMap.com</p>
<p>The most recent World Health Organization <a style="background-color: #ffffff;" href="http://www.who.int/csr/don/2014_05_22_mers/en/">report</a> on MERS cites 632 total cases that have been confirmed with lab tests for the live virus. These cases have caused 193 deaths so far.</p>
<p><span>For </span><b style="background-color: #f1f3f2;"><i>Vox</i></b><span>'s StoryStream of past and future MERS coverage, click </span><a style="background-color: #f1f3f2;" href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/19/5730906/mers-watch">here</a><span>.</span></p>
https://www.vox.com/2014/5/23/5744852/the-interactive-world-map-of-mersSusannah Locke2014-05-21T13:50:02-04:002014-05-21T13:50:02-04:00All US MERS patients have recovered
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<p>Earlier this week, the Florida patient with MERS was released from the hospital after recovering and then testing negative for the virus, according to <a href="http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/05/saudi-arabia-reports-6-more-mers-cases-3-deaths">CIDRAP News</a>. Three people are known to have been infected with deadly MERS virus on US soil, and all three are now free of the virus. This means that as of today, there are no people in the US known to be infected with MERS.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia has continued to report new MERS cases this week. CIDRAP News is following MERS very closely <a href="http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/infectious-disease-topics/mers-cov">here</a>, including reporting on cases that have not yet been confirmed by the World Health Organization.</p>
<p>For <b><i>Vox</i></b>'s StoryStream of past and future MERS coverage, click <a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/19/5730906/mers-watch">here</a>.</p>
https://www.vox.com/2014/5/21/5736268/all-mers-patients-in-us-have-recoveredSusannah Locke2014-05-19T12:10:06-04:002014-05-19T12:10:06-04:00MERS virus' first person-to-person leap in US
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<img alt="A microscope image of MERS coronavirus" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zFxh0PrkTGzgJXyfFA9BXZhqawo=/0x122:775x703/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/33225081/nih-imagebank-1450-300__1_.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>A microscope image of MERS coronavirus | National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)</figcaption>
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<p>So far, public-health officials know of two people in the United States who have brought over a case of the deadly MERS virus from Saudi Arabia. And now it seems one of them spread it to someone else.</p>
<p><q class="right" aria-hidden="true">This new case doesn't seem to suggest that MERS is getting any worse</q></p>
<p>That <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0517-mers.html">third person</a>, a resident of Illinois, never needed medical care, is no longer infected, and is doing fine.</p>
<p>At the moment, this doesn't look like anything to panic about, though public-health officials are watching the situation closely.</p>
<h3>What is MERS?</h3>
<p><span>Here's </span><a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/5/16/5721150/mers-camels-viruses-sars">our full explainer on MERS</a><span>, or Middle East respiratory syndrome. The disease was first discovered in 2012 and has a surprisingly high death rate. There have already been 572 confirmed cases and 173 deaths, mostly in the Arabian Peninsula.</span></p>
<p>Public health experts are keeping a close eye on the MERS virus, which is a cousin of SARS, to see if it becomes more easily transmissible. If it does, it would have the necessary features to possibly become a global pandemic.</p>
<p>Yet this recent spread in the US doesn't necessarily suggest that MERS is getting any worse. So far, the virus has generally only been transmitted from close contact such as within families and healthcare settings — and not from casual environments like being on the same airplane flight.</p>
<p>The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention <a style="background-color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.5;" href="http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0517-mers.html">announced</a> that a preliminary test of this Illinois resident was positive for a previous MERS infection and that these results suggest that he probably caught the virus from the Indiana MERS patient. The two had met face-to-face for business purposes on two recent occasions, including at least <a href="http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/05/cdc-first-us-mers-case-likely-passed-virus-illinois-man">one meeting</a> where the two shook hands while the Indiana man was running a fever.</p>
<h3>What are officials doing to stop the spread?</h3>
<p>Officials had been closely monitoring the Illinois resident, along with dozens of other people connected to the first two US cases. They'll <span>now be tracking down his contacts, too.</span></p>
<p>It's possible that these investigations will turn up other cases similar to this one — people who had it and never knew it and didn't get sick and now don't have it anymore. It's not uncommon for a disease that jumps from animals to people to cause less severe illness with each further leap. MERS' origins are still mysterious, but it's also been found in camels and bats.</p>
<p>Right now, we only know of one person in the US who has the MERS virus in his body: the patient in Florida. The other two people have cleared the virus from their systems and shouldn't be infectious.</p>
<p><span>The CDC says that its </span><a href="http://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/faq.html#labtest" style="background-color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.5;">recommendations</a><span> regarding MERS haven't changed. They say that</span><span> </span><span>Americans are generally at low risk, and they encourage common sense precautions such as not visiting sick people in the Arabian Peninsula.</span></p>
https://www.vox.com/2014/5/19/5730936/first-person-to-person-spread-of-mers-virus-in-usSusannah Locke2014-05-16T08:50:10-04:002014-05-16T08:50:10-04:00What's the MERS virus, and is it going to kill us?
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<img alt="A religious pilgrim wears a mask because of fear of MERS. (October, 2013, near Mecca)" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JXITm5RPacLr2t1y_r2mJK8o3rE=/0x577:1496x1699/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/33103905/184664707.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>A religious pilgrim wears a mask because of fear of MERS. (October, 2013, near Mecca) | AFP/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>A mysterious illness known as MERS might turn into the next global pandemic. Or it may fizzle out. For now, public health experts are keeping a close eye on the situation — but they haven't declared an emergency yet.</p>
<p><q class="right" aria-hidden="true">MERS has already killed 173 people across nineteen countries</q></p>
<p>Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, was first discovered in 2012 and has a surprisingly high death rate. There have already been 572 confirmed cases and 173 deaths across 19 countries. The majority of the illness has been concentrated in Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>This week, a second case of the viral disease was identified in the United States, shortly after the first was found earlier this month. (Both were health-care workers who had recently been in Saudi Arabia.) The discovery came after a sudden jump in cases in Saudi Arabia this spring.</p>
<p>The origins and characteristics of MERS are still quite enigmatic. The virus might fade away into oblivion or mutate into a monster. Here's a rundown of what we know so far:</p>
<h3>What is MERS?</h3>
<p><span>First off, MERS is not </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methicillin-resistant_Staphylococcus_aureus" style="background-color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.5;">MRSA</a> — <span>the antibiotic-resistant bacteria that's somewhat common in US hospitals.</span></p>
<p>MERS — or Middle East respiratory syndrome — was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012. It's caused <span>by a virus called MERS-CoV. </span><span>Patients with MERS end up with symptoms like coughing, fever, and shortness of breath.</span></p>
<p>Although MERS doesn't appear to be exceptionally contagious, public-health experts have been tracking it closely because the disease has such a high death rate. So far, about one-third of the people with confirmed cases have died. The majority of MERS has been in Saudi Arabia, although it's spread to 18 other countries, including two recent cases in the US.</p>
<p><img alt="Screen_shot_2014-05-15_at_6.57.08_pm" class="photo" src="http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/assets/4460571/Screen_Shot_2014-05-15_at_6.57.08_PM.png"></p>
<p class="caption">There was a sudden spike in MERS cases this spring. WHO</p>
<h3>How bad is the situation?</h3>
<p>The World Health Organization (WHO) is watching the disease closely and has convened an emergency committee on the threat, which has met five times since July, 2013.</p>
<p>But, so far, the WHO has yet to declare a global health emergency (Public Health Emergency of International Concern<span>) </span><span>— the way it did for swine flu and polio in recent years. (Declaring such an </span><span>emergency </span><span>would allow the organization to make recommendations such as travel or trade restrictions or that people feeling ill delay any international trips</span><span>.)</span></p>
<p>So what does it mean? It means that MERS <i>could</i> conceivably get really, really bad. But it's not really, really bad yet.</p>
<p><span></span></p>
<h3>Where is MERS?</h3>
<p>More than a dozen countries have confirmed cases so far, including the US. However, most of those people originally caught the virus in Saudi Arabia. (Also, many of those countries don't have anyone who's sick anymore. Oftentimes it's an isolated event. That person then gets better and never infected anyone else.) This map shows where people have been picking up the illness:</p>
<p><img alt="Screen_shot_2014-05-15_at_6.54.53_pm" class="photo" src="http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/assets/4460563/Screen_Shot_2014-05-15_at_6.54.53_PM.png"></p>
<p class="caption">The majority of people with MERS caught it in Saudi Arabia. WHO</p>
<h3>Where did MERS come from?</h3>
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<p class="caption">Dromedary camel. UIG via Getty Images.</p>
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<p>No one is quite sure. So far, evidence of the MERS-CoV virus has been found in bats and dromedary camels (the one-hump kind).<span> </span><span>It's unclear if the virus actually makes these animals sick, although they could still transmit it either way.</span></p>
<p>There are millions of camels in the Middle East, where they're used for meat, milk, and racing. It's possible that MERS has been jumping from camels to livestock workers or to people who have eaten raw camel milk or meat. But even that's unclear. Although some MERS cases have appeared in people who work with camels, many others haven't.</p>
<h3>Am I going to get MERS?</h3>
<p>Right now, the risk is pretty low. But that could conceivably change if the virus mutates.</p>
<p>MERS currently seems to have a pretty low transmission rate — lower than both the flu and SARS. Casual contact — like being on the same plane flight — doesn't seem to be enough to spread the disease. Most documented cases are of people who have been living with or caring for someone with MERS — and those are the only people that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says are at risk. (Many cases in Saudi Arabia are spreading within hospitals.)</p>
<p><q class="right" aria-hidden="true">MERS currently has a fairly low transmission rate</q></p>
<p>Here's a picture of how hard it is to spread: after the first confirmed case of MERS in the United States, public-health officials tracked down and tested more than 500 people whom that patient had come in contact with. None of them have turned up positive.</p>
<p>That's why the CDC says that the two cases of MERS in the United States currently "represent a very low risk to the general public in this country." The agency doesn't even recommend that anyone change their travel plans — even if they're going to Saudi Arabia. However, it does recommend that travelers to the Arabian Peninsula take general precautions like washing your hands and avoiding people who are sick.</p>
<p><span>There is one catch, however: viruses can — and do — mutate. The MERS virus is mutating much more slowly than, say, the seasonal flu virus, but you never know what a random mutation might bring.</span></p>
<h3>If I get MERS, will I die?</h3>
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<img alt="Nih-imagebank-1450-300__1_" class="photo" src="http://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/assets/4461559/nih-imagebank-1450-300__1_.jpg" style="width: 235.53976440429688px;">
<p class="caption">MERS coronavirus. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)</p>
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<p>Calculating an actual death rate for MERS is currently impossible because there isn't enough data to know exactly how many people have been infected with MERS.</p>
<p>The World Health Organization reports at least 572 confirmed cases of MERS, about a third of which have been fatal. (The official death rate for SARS was about 10 percent, which gives you an idea of why experts are concerned about MERS.)</p>
<p><span>However, there could be many people with MERS and mild symptoms who never appear at a hospital, never get screened, and never get diagnosed. As surveillance increases and more doctors know to test for MERS, the apparent death rate might go down. (In fact, this may already be happening.) </span></p>
<p><span></span><span>To sum up: these numbers don't mean that an individual person's actual chance of dying is one in three. No one knows what that actual number is.</span></p>
<h3><span>What happened to the people with MERS in the US? Did they die?</span></h3>
<p>As of May 15, one has been released from the hospital and is fully recovered. The other is in the hospital and doing well.</p>
<p><span></span></p>
<h3><span>What's the treatment for MERS?</span></h3>
<p>There's currently no treatment specifically for MERS and no vaccine for it, either. If people <i>do</i> create a vaccine, there's a good chance they will give it to camels (just like they currently vaccinate poultry for bird flu).</p>
<h3>Why are there all of these terrible viruses lately?</h3>
<p>Experts point to several possible reasons that could all be contributing to the rise. As the human population grows, we've been physically expanding into other animals' territories. This proximity could be increasing how often viruses jump from animals to people.</p>
<p>What's more, once a virus is around people, increased air travel gives it a better chance to spread across the globe.</p>
<p>Also, public health officials have been making a bigger effort to track these kinds of viruses lately (especially after the SARS outbreak in 2002–2003) — so part of the increase may be that they're discovering more about what is out there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Further Reading:</b></p>
<p>For a view of MERS at the front lines in Saudi Arabia, check out this recent <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2014/05/mers-virologists-view-saudi-arabia">Q&A</a> with virologist Christian Drosten.<br><br>From Laurie Garret writing in Foreign Policy, a different perspective <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/04/30/stay_away_from_camel_milk_and_egyptian_tomb_bats_mers_saudi_arabia">inside</a> Saudi Arabia.<span></span></p>
<p><span>For the patenting of the MERS virus, try this </span><a style="background-color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.5;" href="http://news.sciencemag.org/people-events/2013/05/outbreak-continues-confusion-reigns-over-virus-patents">news review</a><span> in ScienceInsider and this </span><a style="background-color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.5;" href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139443/david-p-fidler/who-owns-mers">piece</a><span> by law professor David Fidler in Foreign Affairs.</span></p>
<p>For how to wrangle a feisty, ornery camel to test it for MERS, scroll down to the bottom of this New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/health/experts-scramble-to-trace-the-emergence-of-mers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">story</a><span>.</span></p>
<p><b>Correction:</b> I accidentally wrote that the MERS virus is mutating less slowly than the flu. I meant more slowly. It's been fixed.</p>
https://www.vox.com/2014/5/16/5721150/mers-camels-viruses-sarsSusannah Locke