MERS Roundup

MERS ROUND-UP
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South Korea's Health Ministry confirmed 5 more MERS cases today, upping the total to 35—including 2 more health care workers who had treated infected patients, someone who had shared a room with an infected patient, and 2 hospital visitors. Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/03/us-health-mers-southkorea-patients-idUSKBN0OJ2Y420150603)

While MERS conjures up memories of SARS in China’s, Yanzhong Huang concludes MERS is probably not a serious threat to China—emphasizing that MERS is not airborne and can only be transmitted via limited human to human transmission. Asia Unbound (Council on Foreign Relations Blog) (http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2015/06/02/does-mers-pose-a-serious-threat-to-china/)

For the moment, concerns that MERS is the next SARS are “probably overblown” but much about MERS is unknown, including how it’s transmitted. NPR Goats and Soda (http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/06/03/411728520/mers-in-s-korea-is-bad-news-but-its-not-yet-time-to-panic)

South Korea’s MERS outbreak “emphasizes the importance of maintaining
stringent hospital infection control and prevention measures.” The Lancet Commentary (http://www.thelancet.com/pb/assets/raw/Lancet/pdfs/S2213260015002386.pdf)