Mysterious new MERS virus spreads easily, deadlier than SARS

AP ^ | Published June 20, 2013 /

[BenLurkin]

A mysterious new respiratory virus that originated in the Middle East spreads easily between people and appears more deadly than SARS, doctors reported Wednesday after investigating the biggest outbreak in Saudi Arabia.

...

In a worrying finding, the team said MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) not only spreads easily between people, but within hospitals. That was also the case with SARS, a distant relative of the new virus.

"To me, this felt a lot like SARS did," said Dr. Trish Perl, a senior hospital epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine, who was part of the team. Their report was published online Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Perl said they couldn't nail down how it was spread in every case — through droplets from sneezing or coughing, or a more indirect route. Some of the hospital patients weren't close to the infected person, but somehow picked up the virus.

"In the right circumstances, the spread could be explosive," said Perl, while emphasizing that the team only had a snapshot of one MERS cluster in Saudi Arabia.

[hoosiermama]

Middle East disease. Let Allah sort them out!

[FlingWingFlyer]

Here’s an idea! Let’s pass the Eight Gangstas amnesty bill and open our borders! Okay. I stole it from the commie ‘RATS who have a death wish for America.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

There is a serious problem approaching.

Several million people plan to go to Saudi Arabia in a month or two, and all gather together in one spot.

Then all go back, to all the countries of the world...

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***In a worrying finding, the team said MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) not only spreads easily between people, but within hospitals.****

Ant to think, the Hajj is coming up with millions of moslems in Mecca just waiting to spread it to all points of the golbe!

[tanstaafl44]

the only hope for humanity is that MERS may only be fatal to those with broken DNA

[penelopesire]

Great...Obama about to give asylum to about 5,000 ‘Syrian’ refugees too. Part of his plan to destroy the US I guess..

Pray for our country!

[Shady]

Maybe God I moves in mysterious ways.

[cloudmountain]

Diseases spread in dirt, unmitigated filth.
China gave us leprosy and the bubonic plague, both diseases of FILTH. I visited there in the early 80's. I had been living in Saudi Arabia and had visited India, north African and other middle east countries. I lived in Mexico two years when I was in my 20's. I THOUGHT I knew filth--until I got to China. THE CHINESE WIN THE FILTHY AWARD--(dirty)hands down.

I KNOW that this is a hard pill for some people to swallow, especially those who don't like Arabs, Muslims and other middle easterners, but, sad to say, it's TRUE. The Chinese make the Arabs and Indians look SWISS! Yikes!

[bicyclerepair]

So, sars didn’t reduce the population enough?
So, they had to come up with a better one?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***China gave us leprosy and the bubonic plague, both diseases of FILTH.***

I just love these old cartoons from the past.

[Balata]

All viruses and many bacteria spread the same way. This is not an unknown.

[cloudmountain]

From the internet:
Relatively little is known about MERS. It is not clear how the first human cases originated — the virus' genome shows links to bats — and there is no known treatment.

I didn't know there were bats in Saudi Arabia. I thought they like damp caves. What do I know?

[DNME]

And you just know that should this new disease erupt across the Middle East after the Hajj, that the good ole U. S. of A. will spend BILLIONS and spare no effort to combat the disease in every corner of the muslim world.

I like the earlier sentiment ... let Allah sort it out.

[Doc Savage]

Total B.S. The only people who die from a virus like this are immunocompromised, the young, the elderly. If you’re fit and healthy you’ll be fine.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

You sure about that?

I heard in another article, just going by hear-say mind you, but that other article said the fatality rate of this disease is (quite) high.

Still just reading bits and pieces though. Could be wrong.

[Balata]

Total B.S. The only people who die from a virus like this are immunocompromised, the young, the elderly.

I would add the uninformed to that.

[Blueflag]

First reported illness, i.e. patient zero, was in Jordan. Locus of illness is now Saudi Arabia. Bear in mind that there may be MANY cases in rural Jordan, but no modern health care there to document it.

This is a bad virus. Worse than the much hyped swine-origin flu and SARS.

Fortunately it does appear to be an H1N1 variant, not an H5N1 variant with an inter-human vector. More to learn as it progresses into the populace.

[cloudmountain]

--Malaria--sick mosquitoes. Saudi Arabia always had HEALTHY mosquitoes with all the spraying they did. The nasty mosquitoes came with infected foreign workers. They came in sick, with FORGED "healthy" visas and spread their illnesses. I know that from experience. Mostly the sick workers came from Africa.

--Small pox--sick, infected fleas on rats. Rats exist where they are ALLOWED to exist. People KNOW that they are disease carriers ... but killing rats cost money. I KNOW how much the Chinese LOVE spending money on cleanliness. [sarcasm]

--Leprosy, a disease from filth, still appearing in a VERY few countries ONCE IN A WHILE: China and Bangladesh as far as I know.

When I lived in the middle east there were ALWAYS huge Mercedes Benz trucks which nightly CRUISED the ARAMCO camps and sprayed the HOLY PIE outta all those mosquitoes with DDT. Yes, not the wimpy stuff we use to keep from destroying the environment here, but the real deal. Whew! It worked but made us all cough up our guts for several minutes. Yes, they sprayed wherever they went and if we HAPPEN to be playing softball...aaaaacckkkkkk!!!

[Blueflag]

Not necessarily. The flu virus that swept the world in the early 1900s preyed on healthy young adults.

Ya never know.

But, indeed, any acute respiratory viral infection is harder on those already weakened, and most die from pneumonia or complications therefrom. The virus per se doesn’t kill them, the lack of oxygen does.