MOSCOW, May 14 (RIA Novosti), Nastassia Astrasheuskaya – As the second case of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) made its way to the United States this month, fears of an epidemic are much exaggerated, Director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) Dr Marc Sprenger told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.
"One of the concerns of the public health community is whether this has pandemic potential, either as the virus as we currently see it or with a possible mutation," Sprenger said.
“So far, MERS-CoV has shown its ability to transmit from person to person, but no sustained person to person transmission has occurred, in particular outside of the Arabian Peninsula, indicating that it requires probably a close contact for transmitting,” he added.
"A change, mutation, in the virus could result in a greater capacity to transmit from person to person. However, at this point, no such evidence of change exists," he said.
Since it was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012, the virus has spread to 14 countries, with 538 confirmed cases to date, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). About a third of those infected have died.
Recent research by the Institute of Virology in Bonn, Germany has indicated that the recent upsurge of MERS cases was not due to a change in the virus.
The first MERS case in the US was reported in Indiana on May 2, and was found in a man who had worked in a Riyadh hospital. The second case was found in Florida, where it was brought by a man who had also worked in health care in Saudi Arabia. The patient was admitted to the emergency department of Dr. P. Phillips Hospital with symptoms including fever, chills and a slight cough on Sunday.
Three days after his admission, the patient showed signs of improvement, according to a statement by the hospital on Monday.
"We are taking every precaution, but believe the risk of transmission from this patient is very low since his symptoms were mild and he was not coughing when he arrived at the hospital," said Antonio Crespo, Infectious Disease Specialist and Chief Quality Officer for the hospital.
Many people who had been infected with MERS recovered, and others showed no symptoms at all, Sprenger of ECDC said.
MERS is a relatively new infection for science and medicine, although parallels to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) have been made. An outbreak of SARS in China a decade ago infected more than 8,000 people, killing 774, according to CDC data. No SARS cases have been registered since 2004.
"Neither we at ECDC, nor any of our colleagues working in public health, are under-estimating the seriousness of MERS-CoV. This is partly because there is so much still unknown about it, especially given that we are two years on from it first being identified. But it is too early to judge definitely whether this is more or less dangerous than other fatal diseases such as SARS," Sprenger said.
"We do know, however, MERS is spreading much slower than SARS," he added.
Most of the MERS cases have occurred in Saudi Arabia. The virus is associated with camels, although its initial source is unknown. As long as there is no vaccine to treat the infection, health professionals advise frequently washing hands, avoiding the consumption of undercooked meat and unpasteurized milk and avoiding contact with camels or sick individuals.
