 |
| "Assessment of the MERS-CoV epidemic situation in the Middle East region." Reprinted with kind permission of author (Dr Vittoria Colizza, pers comm).Click on image to enlarge. |
This is perhaps a timely reminder of where cases of MERS-CoV may pop-up if we look at the author's analysis of destinations from major departure airports in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
The figure above also goes to show that the numbers and predictions are great, but biological systems and bad luck prevail. The US gets 2 cases so far, the same as all of Asia. Still, the point is valid; that we live in a highly interconnected world where no 2 points are separated by more time than it takes to silently incubate a respiratory virus and produce signs and symptoms, and virus, after arriving at a new destination.
Reference...
- Chiara Poletto, Camille Pelat, Daniel Levy-Bruhl, Yazdan Yazdanpanah, Pierre-Yves Boelle, Vittoria Colizza,
Assessment of the MERS-CoV epidemic situation in the Middle East region. arXiv:1311.1481 [q-bio.PE]
