May 13, 2014 - UNITED STATES - A third potential case of the
dangerous Middle East Respiratory Virus (MERS), has been found in the
United States, health authorities said Tuesday.
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The Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus is seen in an
undated transmission electron micrograph
from the National Institute for
Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). REUTERS/National Institute
for
Allergy and Infectious Diseases/Handout via Reuters
|
"Two of the 20 team members exposed to the confirmed MERS patient are showing symptoms," said Geo Morales, spokesman for the Orlando hospital where one infected patient was treated.
"One of the two has been admitted to the hospital but is in stable condition. The other was treated and discharged and is following precautions at home. All 20 team members have been tested and we are expecting those results within the next day or two," the spokesman added.
The second infected US patient was confirmed as such May 10. The man, 44, is a health care worker who resides and works in Saudi Arabia, who traveled by plane May 1 from Jeddah to London, England, then to Boston, Atlanta, and Orlando, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters.
The United States announced its first case earlier this month, a health care worker who had traveled to Riyadh at the end of April.
MERS causes fever, cough and shortness of breath, and can be lethal particularly among older people and those with pre-existing health problems.
Some 30 percent of the several hundred people infected with it have died, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The virus first emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and recent research has suggested it may originate in camels.
The vast majority of cases have been in Saudi Arabia, but MERS has also been found in 16 other countries. Most cases involved people who had recently traveled to Saudi Arabia. -
Yahoo.
22 Hospital Workers Stay Home After Contact With Florida Patient
Hospital officials in Orlando say a Saudi resident with the
second U.S. case of a mysterious virus still has a fever but is in good spirits. Officials at Dr. Phillips Hospital said Tuesday that the Saudi resident
still has a low-grade fever and is being treated in isolation for
MERS, or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.
Caretakers have to wear goggles, gloves and a special suit while tending to him.
MERS is a respiratory illness that begins with flu-like fever and cough but can lead to shortness of breath, pneumonia and death. A third of those who develop symptoms die from it.
Dr. Antonio Crespo says two hospital workers were showing flu-like symptoms after coming into contact with the 44-year-old man. One was cleared, but the other was admitted to the hospital.
As health officials seek to contact others who may have been exposed to the MERS-infected patient, one woman told Local 6 she was exposed while flying to Orlando aboard the same flight as the sick man.
WATCH: Woman exposed to MERS speaks out.
Health officials said Tuesday roughly 500 people may have been exposed to the MERS virus by flying on planes within the United States with the sick patient.
One of those travelers learned Tuesday morning she had been exposed and was sent a health checklist.
"They informed me that there was a confirmed case of the MERS virus from my flight from Atlanta to Orlando. I was really scared," said the woman who does not want to be identified, but lives in Virginia and flew with her husband on May 1 aboard the same Delta flight with the MERS-infected patient.
Twelve days after her flight, her State Health Department called and sent her a letter that reads:
"You were exposed to a person with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome(MERS) on your flight" and asks if she has symptoms like fever (100.4 f degrees), cough, difficulty breathing, wheezing, or pain when coughing or breathing deeply. She and others who flew with the MERS patient must record their temperature for 14 days after their exposure."
"I was in shock that I could actually contract it. We're considered exposed but there was no level associated with that. They just said to me, 'You and your husband are considered to be exposed to the MERS virus,'" she said.
She and her husband have no symptoms but still have to monitor their health and they have until May 15 before they are in the clear.
Health officials said the MERS patient continues to improve at the hospital. Health officials said because he was not coughing on board the flights, the risk of spreading the virus to people on the plane is very low. The risk continues to decline among people who had even less contact with him at the airport or elsewhere.
Dr. Kevin Sherin, with the Florida Department of Health at Orange County, said, "I think the risk is negligible to this community."
The Greater Orlando Airport Authority echoed that by saying in a statement, "There is no immediate threat to travelers."
About 15 other workers, including two physicians at Dr. Phillips Hospital, as well as five workers at Orlando Regional Medical Center where the Saudi resident also visited, have been asked to stay home from work for two weeks until they are cleared of having the virus.
"(Orlando is) the travel destination and we are going to see more cases come into our community, so I think Dr. Crespo and I would agree that all the hospitals in Central Florida need to become very proficient when handling the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome virus," said Sherin. -
Click Orlando.
World Health Organization Meets In Geneva
Two health workers at a Florida
hospital exposed to a patient with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome have
begun showing flu-like symptoms, raising concerns about the ability of
global health authorities to contain the mysterious and deadly virus.
The World Health Organization convened an emergency meeting in Geneva on Tuesday to decide whether the rising rate of confirmed cases, most of them in Saudi Arabia, constitutes a "public health emergency of international concern."
Florida officials said they were monitoring the health of 20 healthcare workers who had been in contact with the patient, including a doctor who had already left for Canada. They also were trying to track down nearly 100 people who may have overlapped with the patient at two Orlando medical facilities he visited.
"We're not going to see the last of this," said Dr. Kevin Sherin, director of the Florida Department of Health for Orange County. "We are going to see more cases coming to our community. ... All of the emergency departments in the United States, to be perfectly honest, need to become very familiar with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, and making sure the protocols are in place."
The Florida MERS case is the second on U.S. soil. Both involved healthcare workers who spent time in Saudi Arabia before "importing" the infection to the United States.
The Transportation Security Administration, at the request of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is posting MERS warning signs at 22 major U.S. airports, including all three in the New York City area, a U.S. official said.
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| Saudis wear mouth and nose masks in their farm on May 12, 2014 outside Riyadh (AFP Photo/Fayez Nureldine) |
The warning notes that the risk to most travelers is low but that people who get sick within 14 days of being in the Arabian Peninsula should call a doctor.
Disease experts say it is crucial that hospitals ask anyone who presents with fever or respiratory illness the person has recently been to the kingdom.
"Travel history is very important to ask about," said Dr. Amesh Adalja of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
The virus, which causes coughing, fever and sometimes fatal pneumonia, has been reported in more than 500 patients in Saudi Arabia alone and has spread to neighboring countries and in a few cases, to Europe and Asia. It kills about 30 percent of those who are infected.
The CDC "is taking the current situation very seriously and is working in close coordination with local health authorities," said White House spokesman Jay Carney, who added that President Barack Obama had been briefed on the confirmed cases.
The WHO said its conclusions would be announced at a news conference on Wednesday. The last time the agency set up an emergency committee was in response to the 2009 H1N1 "swine flu" pandemic.
EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT
MERS is a virus from the same family as SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed around 800 people worldwide after it first appeared in China in 2002. Like SARS, MERS spreads from close contact with an infected person.
Officials at the Dr. P. Phillips Hospital in Orlando said on Tuesday the two local healthcare workers exposed to the MERS patient in the emergency department became ill, with one developing symptoms within 24 hours of being exposed to the patient and one within 72 hours of exposure.
One of the workers has been hospitalized and the other is being isolated in his home and monitored.
Hospital officials said the workers' symptoms developed a bit earlier than would be expected for MERS, which typically takes five to 14 days to develop into symptoms. The hospital said it did not yet know if the workers had MERS, but they were put in isolation as a precautionary measure.
The Orlando patient's case highlights concerns over how to prevent the spread of infection, particularly among healthcare workers who are vulnerable because of close contact with the sick.
After working in a hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which has been treating MERS patients, the healthcare worker flew to London and reached the United States on May 1.
Although he had already begun to experience symptoms on the flight, they were mild, and he did not seek treatment at the Orlando hospital until last Thursday.
Last week, he visited with family and accompanied someone to another Orlando medical facility for a procedure. Even when he reached the emergency department close to midnight at Dr. P. Phillips Hospital, it was not until mid-morning the next day that he was placed in isolation.
'IN GOOD SPIRITS'
Since the hospital is less than 10 minutes from the Universal Orlando and Walt Disney World theme parks, the staff is on alert to diseases from other countries. It conducted a drill last year that involved a fictitious case of MERS.
Orlando hospital officials said the MERS patient was doing well and had a low-grade fever and a slight cough.
"He's in good spirits. He's cooperating ... we have not decided yet when he will go home," said Dr. Antonio Crespo, chief quality officer at the hospital.
Crespo said the patient started experiencing muscle aches on his flight from Jeddah to London on April 30. He developed a fever during his flight from London to Boston, where he took connecting flights to Atlanta and finally Orlando.
Because of his travel history, the hospital suspected MERS and contacted the health department. An initial MERS test on Friday was "equivocal," but a test sample taken on Saturday confirmed the virus.
Even so, healthcare workers in the emergency department who attended to the patient were not wearing masks before it became clear that it might be a case of MERS.
The first U.S. MERS patient, who was admitted to a hospital in Indiana late last month, has been discharged. -
Yahoo.
