MERS – A big threat to lives In Saudi Arabia

Two people have died of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in South Korea making it country’s first loss of life from the sickness. MERS virus have been detected in South Korea and around 680 people who might have come into contact with the infected patients, have been placed in isolation.

The Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) also termed EMC/2012 (HCoV-EMC/2012), is positive-sense, single-stranded RNA novel species of the genus Betacoronavirus. it is called novel coronavirus 2012 or simply novel coronavirus, it was first reported in 2012 after genome sequencing of a virus isolated from sputum samples from patients who fell ill in a 2012 outbreak of a flu

Highlights

Source: It belongs to the family Coronaviruses, which includes large family of viruses such as common cold and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). It was discovered in 2012 and was mostly centred in Saudi Arabia. MERS is a betacoronavirus derived from bats. Camels have shown to have antibodies to MERS, but the exact source of infection in camels has not been identified.

Transmission: It is an communicable disease and can be transmitted from infected person to others after close contact via a respiratory route. It spread’s in droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes

Symptoms: Fever, breathing problems, pneumonia and kidney failure, shortness of breathe.

Treatment: Till date there is no vaccine available to prevent it.