Tag Archives: MERS

Identifying MERS-related changes by CT

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A team of researchers in Saudi Arabia have identified certain airspace changes in patients with the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection,  by studying CT scans from seven hospitalized patients.

The changes “were more in the form ground-glass opacities than that of consolidation,” says lead author Amr Ajlan, a radiologist at the King Abdulaziz  University, Saudi Arabia. These changes are not distinctive to MERS-CoV infections only, but the patients also showed changes suggestive of an organizing pneumonia pattern.

The team of researchers studied patients ranging from 19 to 83 years of age, with a median age of 50 – all of whom were hospitalized and showing symptoms of the disease, such as coughing, fever and dyspnea. “These findings are useful in the context of acute viral illness in individuals living in or traveling from regions with a known MERS outbreak,” explains Ajlan.

He quickly adds, however, that CT should not be considered a screening tool for the disease, but that diagnosing and managing patients should continue to depend on the clinical and laboratory pictures instead. “We investigated only a small number of confirmed MERS patients, a fact that prevents us from reaching conclusions regarding the diagnostic performance of CT in evaluating MERS.” All the investigated patients were already hospitalized showing clear symptoms as well, which means the team has not assessed asymptomatic patients or ones with mild symptoms.

“With regards to imaging, the more available, cheap and commonly performed chest X-ray is practically more valuable in investigating MERS cases,” he adds.

The study appeared ahead of print online in the American Journal of Roentgenology.

Saudi Arabian health official deflects MERS questions

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Saudi Arabia is beefing up its surveillance of a deadly coronavirus in advance of Muslims’ annual pilgrimage to Mecca, or Hajj, which is set to begin on 13 October.

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS) has infected 135 people and killed 58 since it emerged about a year ago. Saudi Arabia has been hardest hit, with 117 confirmed cases and 49 deaths.

Now, with nearly 2 million foreign pilgrims expected to journey to Saudi Arabia for the five-day Hajj, the country is on high alert for signs of new MERS cases, according to Ziad Memish, Saudi Arabia’s deputy minister of health for public health.

Saudi Arabia will have public-health officers staffing all land, air and sea ports of entry day and night during the pilgrimage, Memish said during a 2 October talk at the IDWeek infectious-disease conference in San Francisco, California. Hospitals in the cities of Jeddah, Mecca, and Medina will be actively screening pneumonia patients for MERS using tests that produce results in six hours.

Saudi officials are also asking pilgrims to wear face masks — and for those who are elderly, pregnant or ill to stay home. “The bad news is they still come to the Hajj, so pray for us,” Memish said.

But he deflected questions about what his country is doing to determine the source and transmission patterns of the still-mysterious MERS, despite criticism that Saudi Arabia is moving too slowly on such work. Although Memish confirmed that Saudi Arabia will be conducting a comprehensive case-control study — comparing sick and healthy individuals to look for possible infection sources — he declined to offer further details.

In the lead up to the Hajj, the World Health Organization has also called on countries sending pilgrims to step up surveillance efforts. However, many of those countries, especially in the developing world, lack the resources to do so. Millions of pilgrims, not on the Hajj specifically, have been through Saudi Arabia since the MERS outbreak began without bringing the virus home. But other travellers have, and it remains to be seen what will happen in October and beyond.