ProMED: MERS case in Abu Dhabi, UAE

Epidemics can occur anywhere, at any time.

We publish regular updates, produced by Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMED), on outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases to keep you informed on the frequency and impact of our priority diseases.

ProMED is the largest publicly-available system conducting global reporting of infectious diseases outbreaks, with ProMED staff, moderators and team members scanning for, reviewing and posting information relating to global health security from official health reports and media articles.

The below post contains information from health reports, news articles, and academic papers relating to our priority diseases, compiled together by ProMED. Content below may be edited from original ProMED posts for style and length.

These posts provide an overview of disease outbreak activity over the past several weeks. For the latest information relating to outbreaks of infectious diseases, please visit the ProMED website.

MERS-CoV

Location

UAE (Abu Dhabi) and Saudi Arabia
 

Outbreak Update

31 Oct 2019, WHO, Emergencies preparedness, response, Disease outbreak news:

On [7 Oct 2019], the National IHR Focal Point of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) notified the World Health Organization of one laboratory-confirmed case of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection.

The patient is a 44 year old male non-national farmer from Al Ain city, Abu Dhabi region, UAE. He developed fever, runny nose, headache, vomiting, productive cough and shortness of breath on [25 Sep 2019], and was admitted to hospital on [29 Sep 2019]. The patient has underlying comorbidities, including diabetes mellitus, hypertension and hyperlipidemia. He has a history of close contact with dromedary camels and sheep at nearby farms during the 14 days prior to the onset of symptoms. As of [14 Oct 2019] the patient is in a stable condition and is currently in an intensive care unit (ICU). This is the 1st case of MERS-CoV infection reported from UAE since May 2018. Since 2012, UAE has reported 88 cases (including the patient reported above) of MERS-CoV infection and 12 associated deaths.

A case of MERS has also been reported in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia, on 1 November 2019. The 58-year-old male patient has no known history of camel exposure.

See the full ProMED post

 

Ebola

Location

Democractic Republic of Congo
 

Outbreak Update

Thu 31 Oct 2019. WHO/AFRO Ebola dashboard, World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa:
- 3274 cases (including 1 new confirmed case), of which 3157 confirmed
- 117 probable cases, 434 suspected cases
- 59 cases in the last 21 days
- 1052 survivors
- 2185 deaths
- 4.9K contacts being followed out of 6K identified
 

Outbreak Response

Fri 1 Nov 2019. CMRE (Comite Multisectoriel de la Riposte a la maladie a virus Ebola):

- Since the beginning of the vaccination on 8 Aug 2018, 245 999 people have been vaccinated with the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine, manufactured by the pharmaceutical group Merck.

On Friday 1 November, the DRC CMRE (Comite Multisectoriel de la Riposte a la maladie a virus Ebola) announced the first delivery of the second Ebola vaccine in Goma. 11,000 doses were delivered as part of the first batch of the vaccine deployment.

More information on the introduction of a second Ebola vaccine to the DRC is available in this press release.

Since the beginning of the epidemic, the total number of travelers checked (temperature measurement) at the health control points is 112 182 928.

To date, a total of 111 entry points (PoE) and sanitary control points (PoCs) have been set up in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri to protect the country's major cities and prevent the spread of the epidemic in neighboring countries.

See the full ProMED post