Friday 30 August 2013

New WHO update on MERS cases

The latest WHO disease outbreak news (DON) addresses the 2 recent Qatari cases, noted previously here and here
Click to enlarge.

Interestingly, it notes that the 1st case, which showed symptoms while travelling outside of Qatar, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was only travelling for 6-days

That would most likely place the acquisition of infection, which can take as long as 14-days after exposure to the source to manifest with obvious signs of disease, within Qatar. 

I've changed by Qatar case tally to reflect (and recent posts of 59M and 29M cases) that 4 cases have been acquired within Qatar.

Just looking at the latest case curves, we seem to have entered a period of rapid case growth, after a period of quiet. These little spikes are good times to cast a very broad mind over what might be happening with animals, weather, dust/wind, camel movements, bat activities, baboon interactions, festivals, markets...almost anything that could be used to link an uptick in cases with exposure to a possible source. 

There must be something common out there....its just needs to be found. As Sherlock Holmes said in a question, "...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth". At this stage, with nothing really ruled out as impossible, that leaves a lot to consider.



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