Sunday, June 2, 2013

ProMED: MERS-COV - EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN (16): ITALY ex JORDAN, CONTACT CASES, WHO

[Thanks ProMED for mentioning us below]

Published Date: 2013-06-02 04:56:36
Subject: PRO/AH/EDR> MERS-CoV - Eastern Mediterranean (16): Italy ex Jordan, contact cases, WHO
Archive Number: 20130602.1750425

A ProMED-mail post
http://www.promedmail.org
ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
http://www.isid.org

In this report:
[1] Italy ex Jordan: WHO
[2] Italy ex Jordan: contact cases, MOH
[3] Jordan: surveillance, newswire
[4] Saudi Arabia: 3 new deaths, MOH

******
[1] Italy ex Jordan: WHO
Date: Sat 1 Jun 2013
Source: WHO Global Alert and Response (GAR), Disease Outbreak News [edited]
http://www.who.int/csr/don/don_updates/en/index.html


Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus - update 1 Jun 2013
----------------------------------------------------------------
The Ministry of Health in Italy, through the European Union's Early Warning Response System, has notified WHO of a laboratory confirmed case with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in a resident in the country.

The patient is a 45 year old man with recent travel from Jordan. He returned to Italy on 25 May 2013 with symptoms of cough and fatigue. His condition deteriorated and he was hospitalised on 28 May 2013. He is currently in a stable condition.

A laboratory test was conducted by the influenza reference laboratory of Tuscany and confirmed by the National Influenza Center of the Istituto Superiore di Sanita.

Globally, from September 2012 to date, WHO has been informed of a total of 51 laboratory confirmed cases of infection with MERS-CoV, including 30 deaths.

WHO has received reports of laboratory confirmed cases originating in the following countries in the Middle East to date: Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). France, Germany, Italy, Tunisia, and the United Kingdom have also reported laboratory confirmed cases; they were either transferred there for care of the disease or returned from the Middle East and subsequently became ill. In France, Tunisia, and the United Kingdom, there has been limited local transmission among patients who had not been to the Middle East but had been in close contact with the laboratory confirmed or probable cases.

Based on the current situation and available information, WHO encourages all member states to continue their surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and to carefully review any unusual patterns.

Health care providers are advised to maintain vigilance. Recent travellers returning from the Middle East who develop SARI should be tested for MERS-CoV as advised in the current surveillance recommendations. Specimens from patients' lower respiratory tracts should be obtained for diagnosis where possible. Clinicians are reminded that MERS-CoV infection should be considered even with atypical signs and symptoms, such as diarrhoea, in patients who are immunocompromised.

Health care facilities are reminded of the importance of systematic implementation of infection prevention and control (IPC). Health care facilities that provide care for patients suspected or confirmed with MERS-CoV infection should take appropriate measures to decrease the risk of transmission of the virus to other patients, health care workers and visitors.

--
communicated by:
ProMED-mail Rapporteur Marianne Hopp

[2] Italy ex Jordan: contact cases, MOH
Date: Sat 1 Jun 2013
Source: Italy Ministry of Health press release [in Italian, trans., edited]
http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/news/p3_2_4_1_1.jsp?lingua=italiano&menu=salastampa&p=comunicatistampa&id=3963


Novel coronavirus, 2 additional confirmed cases in Italy
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The cases are 2 close contacts of the 1st confirmed patient; both are currently in stable condition; the Ministry of Health is following the situation closely.

The Tuscany Region reported to the Ministry of Health this afternoon [1 Jun 2013] that 2 people, already under surveillance because they had been in close contact with the 1st confirmed case, have developed clinical respiratory symptoms of the disease and are currently in a stable condition.

Laboratory tests performed by Regional Health Authorities and by the National Institute of Health confirmed the infection with the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

The cases are a 2 year old girl (a family member of the index case), and a coworker of the same patient [presumably the 1st case]. Both patients are hospitalized under isolation in Florence hospitals.

Human transmission between people who have had close and prolonged contact with confirmed patients has been documented elsewhere in Europe, in domestic or nosocomial environments.

The Ministry of Health is following closely the situation and remains in close contact with the Tuscany regional health authorities.

--
communicated by:
Giuseppe Michieli
FluTrackers
<gimi69@libero.it>

[Additional information was submitted by Roberto Labanti <rlabanti@gmail.com> who provided a newswire from Firenze Repubblica, along with a machine translation (see http://firenze.repubblica.it/cronaca/2013/06/01/news/sars_controlli_su_una_bambina_la_nipote_del_paziente_giordano-60124632/?ref=HREC1-6), and by "Commonground", <pudge0221@yahoo.com> from http://pandemicinformationnews.blogspot.com/ who also submitted a similar newswire about these additional cases and contacts.

These newswires (both in Italian) say that the young child is the granddaughter of the index case, and that the other case is a colleague of the index case -- the index case works at a hotel and had gone to work the 1st day back in Florence before seeking medical care. They also mention that the index case was ill while on the plane returning to Italy, and that there are an additional 40 contacts under observation and another 12 under observation in Jordan.

The addition of these contact cases in Italy raises the total number of laboratory confirmed cases of MERS-CoV to 53, including 33 deaths (see report from Saudi MOH below reporting 3 new fatalities among previously reported cases).

For a map of Italy, see http://healthmap.org/r/77hH and for a map showing Jordan, see http://healthmap.org/r/1CMW. - Mod.MPP]




[3] Jordan: surveillance, newswire
Date: Sat 1 Jun 2013
Source: Ammon News [edited]
http://en.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?ArticleNo=21210#.UarcC5XvKYk


The Ministry of Health on Saturday [1 Jun 2013] informed the World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Amman, Akram Altoum, that it had made prompt contacts with Italian health authorities after on Friday [30 Jun 2013] Italy reported its 1st coronavirus case, a 40 year old Italian who had traveled to Jordan. Health minister Mjalli Mheilan called the ministry's special coronavirus committee into a meeting today [1 Jun 2013] to take immediate measures after the reports that the infected person had traveled to Jordan.

The committee also contacted Italian authorities to learn full details of the case and more about the people with whom the Italian came in contact in Jordan so that authorities could conduct an expanded epidemiology probe and gather more information about the infection.

"We called the WHO regional office in Cairo and the head office in Geneva after the ministry of health informed us about its procedures to gain more information about the case from the period before the infection, as well as the details of the probe by Italian authorities," Altoum told Petra.

He said the 40 year old patient, who resides in Italy and had stayed in Jordan for 40 days, is in good condition, adding that he was awaiting news about the locations he had traveled to in Jordan and the people he had met with, in order to share information with the ministry as it begins the epidemiology probe.

To date, 50 cases of the coronavirus have been reported worldwide, and 30 of the infected people have died [with the addition of the 3 cases in Italy and the 3 newly reported fatalities in Saudi Arabia, the global total of laboratory confirmed cases is now 53, including 33 fatalities. - Mod.MPP]

In 2012, the Ministry of Health reported the deaths of 2 people due to the virus, which can cause coughing, fever, and pneumonia. But no new cases or deaths have so far been reported this year [2013]. [There was a cluster of 13 cases of severe acute respiratory illness involving an intensive care unit (ICU) in Jordan in April 2012 including 2 deaths. Laboratory testing of these cases resulting in confirmation of MERS-CoV infection in only the 2 fatal cases (see Prior ProMED-mail posts Novel coronavirus - Saudi Arabia (04): RFI, Jordan, April 2012 20120925.1308001, and Novel coronavirus - Eastern Mediterranean: WHO, Jordan, conf., RFI 20121130.1432498). - Mod.MPP]

--
communicated by:
ProMED-mail
<promed@promedmail.org>

[We await more information from results of epidemiologic investigations in Jordan. - Mod.MPP]



[4] Saudi Arabia: 3 new deaths, MOH
Date: Sat 1 Jun 2013
Source: Ministry of Public Health, Saudi Arabia [edited]
http://www.moh.gov.sa/en/HealthAwareness/Corona/PressReleases/Pages/MediaStatement-2013-06-01-001.aspx


Within the framework of the epidemiological surveillance of the novel coronavirus disease (MERS-CoV), the Ministry of Health (MOH) has announced the deaths of 3 patients who had been previously announced to be infected with this virus and were suffering from various chronic diseases, including kidney failure that had afflicted 2 of them.

The MOH has pointed out that it tested 155 samples during the past 3 days at its laboratories, and all of them resulted negative.

--
communicated by:
ProMED-mail
<promed@promedmail.org>

[As mentioned in the comment above, this report now raises the number of laboratory confirmed deaths associated with MERS-CoV infection to 33, with a global total number of cases presently at 53.

For a map showing the locations of cases in Saudi Arabia, see http://www.moh.gov.sa/en/HealthAwareness/Corona/Pages/AboutCorona.aspx. As of 1 Jun 2013 there have been 38 confirmed cases of MERS-CoV in Saudi Arabia, 24 of which have resulted in death. - Mod.MPP]

http://www.promedmail.org/direct.php?id=20130602.1750425

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