MERS-CoV among healthcare workers: no longer identified or the end of a hospital cluster?

Just looking at @maiamajumder's vast array of MERS-related charts on Twitter and had a thought.She and I and others have been wondering for a while if perhaps the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's (KSA) Ministry of Health (MOH) reporting has decided to simply no longer identify healthcare workers (HCWs)...

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The impact of cell culture on virus as highlighted by deep sequencing..[UPDATED]

Alignment of complete or near complete MERS-CoV genomes made using Geneious v6.1.7. The Neighbor-Joining tree was made using MEGA with 1000 bootstraps. Red stars indicate virus from same patient. Vertical bars to the right indicate Clade A (dark blue) and B (pale blue). Sequences from the...

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MERS by day, testing by night...

Now that we can look back over more than a month (from 20-April to the latest Kingdom of Saudi Arabia [KSA] Ministry of Heath [MOH] report of 7 cases dated 22-May), we see that the downwards trend in MERS-CoV detections  has been pretty consistent.Click on image to enlarge.I noted...

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Snapdate: Avian influenza A(H7N9) virus...

There seem to have been more announcements of late than previously so I thought I'd plot this and see. These are a little adrift as the last 7 or so have not been through the WHO scrubbing process (which adds extra bits of data) so we will see a little shifting the last 2 or...

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Snapdate: MERS-CoV detections by where they were probably acquired...

...yeah its "probably" because sometimes it's just not clear to anyone. I've about 14 (554 in total) more cases attributed to a likely source in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) compared to the Ministry of Health tally on their website (540), but such is life.Anyway, I haven't updated this chart for...

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Camels at the centre, aerosol all around...

v2 12JUN2015A droplet (and perhaps airborne)-centric view of how the camel could be a source of sporadic human infection by MERS-CoV, a virus that is genetically very similar whether found in camels or humans.The inner ring (orange) is more about bigger wetter droplets and aerosols-if you must differentiate...

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MERS-CoV detections: The April wave recedes...

So welcome to the 114th Week of MERS-CoV among us. That week numbering may change shortly. Stay tuned if week numbering is your thing.We currently have a tally of 649 detections of MERS-CoV or viral antibodies in humans. I don't list camel numbers. My count says 192 fatalities among infected...

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Thoughts on two weeks of rural primary care in Mexico

Update: I go to Jaltenango today enroute to Refoma, the second community that I am working in.  From what I understand, it is both more rural and yet closer to Jaltenango.  It is apparently also a community of many Jehovah's Witnesses.  My last night in Laguna was marked by an after-dark...

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Health related graffiti in Jaltenango, Mexico

I'm a total sucker for health-related graffiti.  There seems to be an HIV educational campaign in Jaltenango, which makes for some amusing artwork."HIV/AIDS.  Bring me, look for me, use me!""HIV/AIDS can only be aquired by means of sex and blood.  And a mother can transmit the virus to...

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Primary Care in Chiapas, Mexico

Some of these posts are backdated, due to poor internet access in Chiapas.  But in short, thanks to funding from the Partners Center of Excellence, I'll be spending the next month in rural primary care clinics in Chiapas, Mexico with Compa�eros en Salud, the Mexican arm of Partners in Health.  While...

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