CIDRAP
Excerpt:
The HPA continues to monitor close contacts of the two new CoV
patients, as well as members of health teams treating them. The ECDC
said so far none have shown symptoms
The ECDC also said the HPA is in contact with an airline to follow
up on passengers who may have been exposed to the virus while flying
with the first patient.
In another development related to 60-year-old man's infection,
Ziad Memish, MD, Saudi Arabia's deputy minister for public health,
yesterday suggested that health experts reconsider the current CoV case
definition, according to his post on ProMED-Mail, the online reporting
system of the International Society for Infectious Diseases.
He wrote that although the HPA emphasized the patient's travel to
the Middle East, the incubation period and the appearance of symptoms
are ambiguous enough to warrant a more cautious statement. "…it remains
unknown where and when this patient became infected," he wrote.
Memish also urged caution about interpreting the pH1N1
co-infection until the test results are confirmed by an independent
source. He said a thorough search hasn't turned up any similar dual
infections in Saudi Arabia.
Surveillance for SARIs in Saudi Arabia is ongoing, tests on 300
sick Hajj pilgrims found no coronavirus cases, and personal
communications with French and Egyptian health officials have also
revealed no CoV infections, Memish wrote.
He pressed for an expanded search for more cases. "Thus far it is
less associated with focused or even regional outbreaks than it is with
sporadic disease in widely separated locales. Unless and until SARI
investigations are expanded, our understanding of its epidemiology and
disease spectrum will remain limited. An urgent discussion of the
current case definition is needed.
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