Saudi official says labs failed to report MERS cases
Robert Roos
CIDRAP News
Jun 12, 2014
A top Saudi Arabian health official said poor communication by laboratories and hospitals was the main reason that 113 MERS-CoV cases, including 92 deaths, were not reported promptly, according to a Reuters report today.
Tariq Madani, head of the scientific advisory board at the Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH), said 80 of the cases were confirmed by government hospitals and labs, but they didn’t notify the MOH of the results, according to the story. The cases were belatedly reported by the MOH last week, increasing the nation’s case count by almost 20%.
Meanwhile, the MOH reported one new MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) infection today, after going 2 days without any. The case involves a 36-year-old male expatriate who is in stable condition in the southwestern town of Al Bahah. He is not a healthcare worker, the ministry said.
The case raised the Saudi MERS tally to 701 cases, while the death toll remained at 287. Forty-six patients are still under treatment, and 368 have recovered.
Also today, several new reports offered more data on MERS-CoV in dromedary camels. A report in Eurosurveillance supplied more details on findings about MERS-CoV in camel milk, and another study in the same journal added to the evidence that the virus or a closely related one has been circulating in Saudi Arabian camels since the early 1990s.
Delayed case reporting
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