Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has been a cause for concern for months, with a steady trickle of new cases, often fatal, dating back to April, 2012. Until March of this year there were fewer than five confirmed infections per month, but April and May each saw 19 new cases, driven up by a cluster in the Al-Ahsa region in eastern Saudi Arabia. Most people now known to have caught MERS-CoV have done so from another human being.Efforts to understand the infection have consequently been stepped up. A WHO team of experts tasked with trawling through the existing Saudi data has just returned from the country. It hopes to publish a report this month. Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health has also agreed to send samples from animals that seem likely candidates to harbour the virus to the USA for analysis. This marks a positive shift in tone: last autumn, the same ministry stood accused of ordering the sacking of Ali Mohamed Zaki, the virologist who alerted the medical community to this new threat by posting an entry on proMED (an infectious disease news website), and who sent a sample abroad to fi nd out what it could be.
展开▼
