King Abdulaziz University Faculty of Medicine Conducted Lecture Regarding MERS CoV

King Abdulaziz University Faculty of Medicine recently conducted a lecture entitled “MERS Corona Virus Awareness” presented by Prof. Tariq Madani, Professor of Internal Medicine and Infection Diseases; Head of the Infection Control and Environmental Health; Head of Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine. The lecture was attended by a large number of medical students and hospital staffs.
The lecture started with the history of the MERS CoV and its discovery in Jeddah last June 2012H, and how it spread throughout Saudi Arabia and then to the Neighboring Gulf States. From September 2012 to March 27, 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed that there are 206 cases of which 86 died.
Cases have been recorded in the Middle East, of which are Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Oman. Other cases have been confirmed in the European countries, for which was caused by a history of close contact with an infected person or travelling to Middle East. As for King Abdulaziz University, the Hospital has registered 3 cases.
Symptoms of MERS CoV infection are fever, cough, shortness of breath, low white blood cell and platelet count, pneumonia which can be verified by X-ray. Most of the patients have severe inflammation of the respiratory system that led to death but only 41% of them suffered symptoms of simple inflammation of the respiratory system. Prof. Tariq Madani also stressed that the incubation period of the virus is still unknown, but is expected to be between 7 to 14 days.
The virus is transmitted by having a direct contact with a carrier of the virus especially be droplet inhalation caused by coughing, sneezing, touching contaminated object. Researches have been done and proving that it is possible that the disease is transmitted through camels infected with the virus which has similar symptoms like fever and shortness of breath. Note that most of the recorded cases in the world did not have any direct contact with infected camels.