Maths says MERS-CoV still doesn't have pandemic potential

Breban and colleagues note in the Lancet that even with their most optimistic number crunching, there is only a low risk that that the coronavirus causing MERS could jump from an infected case to a naive person. Certainly not enough to pose a serious possibility of pandemic spread at this...

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MERS-CoVs: South African bats vs Saudi Arabian bats

The latest sign of MERS-CoV in an animal, the Taphozous perforatus bat, is based on a 181 basepair (bp) fragment amplified from the viral RNA collected from a bat's droppings. The sequence is not yet available on the public sequence database, GenBank, and I haven't asked Prof Lipkin et al. for...

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MERS-CoV updated graphs...

With all the movement in case numbers after a 3-week hiatus, I thought it worth checking what the charts look like.This is graph (above), is based on dates of onset combined with dates of reporting to fill data gaps. We can see the Proportion of Fatal Cases (PFC) has settled. There are some data gaps...

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MERS-CoV case tally bursts through 100...

1st Source I saw: FluTrackersFluTrackers has noted that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Heath site has another batch of cases and a death among people infected with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV).Currently the case tally is at 103 with 48 deaths; the proportion of fatal cases is 46.6%31, Male, underlying conditions, in an intensive...

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Two new MERS-CoV cases and the death of an existing case, all from Riyadh

FluTrackers reports on two new MERS-CoV cases and the death of a previously infected person.The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's English and Arabic Ministry of Health (MOH) notes a 50-year old male (50M) and a 70-year old female (70F), both with underlying diseases and without dates of illness onset or hospitalisation. Both are in an intensive care unit.On the Arabic-language...

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Most hajj pilgrims are elderly...

...this is according to a story in today's Arab News, chair of the national establishment of pilgrims fro Arab countries was quoted:We noticed, however, that most of the pilgrims who arrive from these countries are elderlyThis follows on from yesterday's post about Russian pilgrims whose numbers have been limited by request, using a ballot system. Whether they were also restricted by age...

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Taphozous perforatus - The Egyptian Tomb Bat

Rage of Taphozous perforatus. Image from the IUCN Red List, via WikipediaThis furry little fella '(~10cm long, 6cm forearm, 34cm wingspan and weighing in at 28g) occurs  throughout northern and sub-Saharan Africa, the Arabian peninsula and Asia, east to India. It's name, "tomb bat" comes from...

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MERS-CoV genetic sequences found in Taphozous perforatus bat

Profs Ziad Memish and Ian Lipkin, and a team of collaborators including researchers from the EcoHelath Alliance, have published, in Emerging Infectious Diseases, their discovery of viral sequences in the faecal pellet of an Egyptian tomb bat.Photo courtesy of Dr Jonathan H. Epstein. Copyright EcoHealth...

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2nd French MERS-CoV patient still in serious condition

1st sources: @makoto_au_japon & @HelenBranswellNord Pas-de-Calais reports that the patient remains in intensive care in serious condition. He is not in isolation as he is MERS-CoV free.The 51-year-old male (51M) patient was locally infected, showing signs on May 8th 2013. He was believed to have been infected after sharing a 20m2 room and single bathroom, with the MERS-CoV index case,...

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16,000 Russian hajj pilgrims September 6 - October 9

1st source: @makoto_au_japonRussia and India Report also notes that..According to the rules, pilgrims should be no older than 65 years of age and no younger than 12 years of age. According to my list and among those with details available:53% of MERS-CoV cases and 65% of deaths are older than 55-years74% of cases and 57% of deaths are 65-years or younger2 cases and 1 death are under...

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New MERS-CoV case, likely imported, reported in Qatar

1st source: @makoto_au_japonFrance 24 reported a case of MERS-CoV in a 59-year-old (59M) Qatari man. He is currently stable.He is reported by the Qatari Supreme Council of Health (SCH) as having arrived from "another country" and of having symptoms while abroad, so this is then an imported case leaving Qatar's local acquisitions at 2, by my count.This brings the...

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Taihu lake & influenza viruses Part II: people, pigs, poultry and migratory birds

Source of H5N1/H7N9 spatial overlap figure: Many thanks to Dr Ricardo J. Soares Magalhaes, The Univeristy of Queensland.The figure below, from the Letter I talked about yesterday, published by Wang and colleagues in Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol 19(11) shows the Lake Tai region.To clarify, the paper talked...

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H7N9 and H5N1 may have emerged from birds around Taihu Lake

Wang and colleagues from the Institute of Disease Control and Prevention of People�s Liberation Army, Beijing, China and from The University of Queensland, Australia writing in Emerging Infectious Diseases, note that most (71%) people in China infected with influenza A(H5N1) virus (spanning from 14/10/2004-17/05/2013) had direct contact with poultry or their excrement. That contact includes work-related...

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Nearly half the Indonesians performing Hajj may be over 60-years of age

On top of that, a quarter may have underlying illnesses. This, according to an article on Arab News, is an estimate based on comments from the Indonesian Ministry of Health and Religious Affairs, Haj Health Center.As we know, age and underlying diseases, or "co-morbidities", are significant risk factors for more severe disease following MERS-CoV infection.These data give an the world an insight...

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MERS-CoV: 2 new severe disease cases in Riyadh

Last night, Mike Coston's Avian Flu Diary revealed a notice of two new MERS cases in Riyadh. These were reported on the Arabic-language version of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health website.50-year male in an intensive care unit (ICU)with pre-existing underlying disease59-year old ?suffering pre-existing underlying diseases and continues (how long has...

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Understanding phylogeny....how virus sequence relate to each other through time

Over at Edinburgh University, there is an awesome Molecular evolution, phylogeneticis and epidemiology's website. On it's "epidemic" blog, run by Prof. Andrew Rambaut, there is a fantastic new primer on how to read a phylogenetic tree.I highly recommend this for all levels of skill. It provides a great and colourful background to what a phylogenetic tree does, and...

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H7N9 vaccine update...[UPDATED]

Hat tip to Dr. Nicholas Kelly for JAMA link reminder.Earlier in the month, Zou Yong, quality directer of China based Sinovac Biotech Ltd  the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that preliminary work on an adjuvanted (see bwlow) H7N9 vaccines was complete and are ready for safety  stability and clinical trials. It has already completed been through...

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Housekeeping on VDU blog: 145 posts and counting

Only 2-days of May 2013 left to copy across from the old blog format. Lots of still-pertinent posts during May so if you haven't seen them already have a browse.And somehow, I missed my 100-blog-post party! Definitely a cake for 500 posts.Back to some paper summaries tomorr...

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