Mers Corona Virus

[Health Hazard] MERS Virus puts India on high alert; Businesses advised to exercise caution w.r.t. contact with travellers and traders coming from areas with outbreak.

Facts

MERS Corona Virus has emerged to be a global threat putting countries all over the world at risk as its cases have been reported in over 20 countries, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Turkey, Oman, Algeria, Bangladesh, Austria, the United Kingdom, South Korea, the United States and Mainland China. The disease has been described as a flu like illness with signs and symptoms of pneumonia.

Currently no vaccine is available to prevent the viral disease, and treatment is limited to supportive medical care to help relieve the symptoms.

 At least 446 of reported 1244 cases of MERS have died globally as of 9 June 2015 to bring the fatality rate to an alarming 36%. However, no case has been reported in India.

Analysis

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS) is virus that causes a viral respiratory disease was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and has had a major outbreak in South Korea in 2015. The typical symptoms are fever, cough, shortness of breath and pneumonia. Gastrointestinal symptoms, including diarrhoea, have also been reported in certain cases.

As per World Health Organisation, the route of transmission from animals to humans has not been fully understood as of now but camels are likely to be a host reservoir for the MERS virus and also a likely source of infection for humans.  

Recently, India saw the 2015 Swine-Flu outbreak that claimed more than 2,0001  lives which was contained only when the temperature rose in April bringing the number of swine-flu cases down. In case of an outbreak the measures taken by the government in response seem to be lackadaisical, as the hospitals proved to be short staffed and ill-equipped to handle an outbreak, additionally, there was a considerable delay in the disbursal of anti swine-flu medicine.