Lapses in infection control at hospitals in Saudi Arabia may have led to a recent surge in cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in the country, according to World Health Organization (WHO) experts.
The team of experts recently returned from a five-day mission to Saudi Arabia to help health officials manage the recent outbreak in MERS cases.
The team examined the epidemiological, disease prevention, organizational, and communication aspects of the MERS outbreak, with the goal of understanding the public health risk and to propose solutions to curb the spread of the disease.
The WHO team visited two main hospitals in Jeddah. They found that the recent surge does not represent a "significant change" in the transmissibility of the virus. Rather, the increase could be explained by a seasonal increase in primary cases, coupled with several outbreaks in hospitals due to breaches in WHO's recommended practices for infection prevention and control.
Most MERS infections between humans have occurred in healthcare facilities, the team noted, and one-quarter of all cases have been healthcare workers. WHO said there is a "clear need to improve healthcare workers' knowledge and attitudes about the disease and systematically apply WHO's recommended infection prevention and control measures in healthcare facilities."
The organization went on to note that there is no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission outside of hospitals, and overall virus transmission patterns have remained unchanged.
In communities outside hospitals, it's still unclear why the number of primary MERS cases has increased, according to WHO. Three-quarters of primary community cases have been male, and the majority of infected individuals are older than 50 years. Secondary transmission of MERS in the community and in households has been much lower than in healthcare settings.
On May 9, the Saudi Ministry of Health reported five more deaths from the MERS coronavirus, bringing the number of those who have been killed in the country to 126, according to an article from Al Jazeera. On May 6, the head of Jeddah's King Fahd Hospital was sacked after a spike in MERS cases among medical staff, according to the story.
