MIDDLE EAST RESPIRATORY SYNDROME CORONA VIRUS ALERT VERIFICATION IN MIRPUR, AZAD KASHMIR
Abstract
Background: Middle East Respiratory-Corona virus (MERS-CoV), SARS like virus,identified in September 2012 in Middle-East. February 2013, an elderly man, who visitedPakistan and KSA, was confirmed as MRS-CoV in UK. A team visited Mirpur to assesscurrent and past SARI trends in major indoor facilities, to explore possible contact of thepatient with known or suspected SARI case during his stay in Pakistan and enlist closecontacts. Methods: Review of indoor records in hospitals, interviews with relatives &physicians and active contact tracing using operational case definition. Results: Arrived on16th December 2012, mostly stayed at daughter's house, visited by relatives, on 19th January,left for KSA accompanied by daughter, developed fever with chills and body aches on 23rdJanuary. On 28th January, arrived London, admitted at City Hospital, Birmingham,subsequently shifted to Manchester Hospital on 6th February 2013, diagnosed as MERS-CoV,expired on 19th February. His son having underlying condition, confirmed as MERS-CoV on13th February, and expired on 17th February. Daughter developed mild respiratorysymptoms, confirmed as MERS-CoV on 16th Feb and recovered. Both have been infected bythe Index case. The review of indoor record did not reveal any significant change in SARItrends, the cumulative number of cases for the January –February 2012 and 2013 was 291 and294 respectively indicating no difference. During his stay in Pakistan, he didn't meet anysuspected/ill person. Close contacts were observed and investigated for MERS-CoV, allremained healthy. Conclusions: The available evidence does not suggest any MERS-CoVtransmission to, or from the patient in Pakistan.Keywords: MERS-CoV; Transmission.References
World Health Organization. Middle east respiratory
syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)–saudi arabia. Saudi
Med J 2014;35(10):1293.
Centers for Diease Control and Prevention. Middle East
Respiratory Syndrome. Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) [Internet].
[Cited: 1 May, 2017 ]. Available from:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/index.html
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) UK Novel Coronavirus
Investigation team. Evidence of person-to-person
transmission within a family cluster of novel coronavirus
infections, United Kingdom, February 2013. Euro Surveill
;18(11):20427.
Published
Issue
Section
License
Journal of Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad is an OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL which means that all content is FREELY available without charge to all users whether registered with the journal or not. The work published by J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad is licensed and distributed under the creative commons License CC BY ND Attribution-NoDerivs. Material printed in this journal is OPEN to access, and are FREE for use in academic and research work with proper citation. J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad accepts only original material for publication with the understanding that except for abstracts, no part of the data has been published or will be submitted for publication elsewhere before appearing in J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad. The Editorial Board of J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad makes every effort to ensure the accuracy and authenticity of material printed in J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad. However, conclusions and statements expressed are views of the authors and do not reflect the opinion/policy of J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad or the Editorial Board.
USERS are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.
AUTHORS retain the rights of free downloading/unlimited e-print of full text and sharing/disseminating the article without any restriction, by any means including twitter, scholarly collaboration networks such as ResearchGate, Academia.eu, and social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Scholar and any other professional or academic networking site.
