Medics everywhere: be on the alert for Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), the disease that emerged last September in Saudi Arabia.
It is caused by a coronavirus related to the one that causes SARS, which infected over 8000 people in 2003.
鈥淎ll countries in the world need to ensure that their healthcare workers are aware of the virus and the disease it can cause, and that when unexplained cases of pneumonia are identified, MERS should be considered,鈥� said the on Monday, following a summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
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As of last Friday, 55 cases had been confirmed, 31 of which were fatal. Most of the cases were in four Middle Eastern countries, with 40 in Saudi Arabia itself. But infected travellers have spread the disease elsewhere, hence the WHO鈥檚 warning.
Although the route of infection remains unknown, the first case of person-to-person transmission occurred in France in April.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淲atch out for MERS鈥�
