New Coronavirus [first Introduced To The US]

2023 Author: Abraham Higgins | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 23:16

New coronavirus [first introduced to the US]

US regulatory authorities have confirmed the first case of importation into the country of a new variety of coronavirus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome. This is a male health worker who flew to Chicago on April 24 from the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. Meanwhile, the authorities in Saudi Arabia are reporting a sharp increase in the spread of infection in the country.

MERS-CoV under an electron microscope. Image from the site hpa.org.uk /

US regulatory authorities have confirmed the first importation into the country of a new variety of coronavirus (MERS-CoV), which causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), Reuters reported.

This is a male paramedic, whose name and age are not disclosed, on April 24 on a British Airways flight that flew to London from the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. At London Heathrow Airport, he took a flight to Chicago, from where he took a bus to one of the cities in Indiana. The man developed symptoms such as fever, cough, and respiratory distress on April 27, according to the state health department. The next day, he went to the emergency department of Community Hospital (Munster, Indiana, about 48 kilometers northwest of Chicago) and was hospitalized. Due to the patient's travel history, he was tested for MERS-CoV. On May 2, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officially confirmed the presence of the virus in patient tests.

As the head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Anne Schuchat, said at a press conference, the patient is currently isolated and in a stable condition, no other cases of suspected MERS have been identified in his environment. The risk of spreading the infection, according to Shuchat, is extremely low, since it is transmitted through very close contact, and after returning home, the sick man almost did not leave the house.

Nevertheless, according to her, the CDC, together with the US civil security authorities, is identifying everyone with whom the sick person came into contact during the flight, bus trip and on the spot. Similar work is carried out by the relevant UK authorities in relation to passengers on a flight that the patient flew from Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, in late April, Saudi Arabian authorities reported a sharp rise in the number of MERS-CoV infections in the country in recent weeks. Thus, by April 27, the number of fatal MERS cases had reached 102, with 60 of them occurring in April. The total number of infections in the world since the outbreak began in September 2012 has reached almost 300, 93 of them have been fatal. The virus, which began to spread in Saudi Arabia, has so far affected 12 more countries of the world, including the countries of the Middle East and Europe, being brought there by tourists and pilgrims.

So far, there is no vaccine or specific antiviral therapy for MERS-CoV infection, which causes severe respiratory syndrome complicated by renal failure. In late April, an international team of microbiologists confirmed that camels are the natural reservoir of MERS-CoV. However, the modes of transmission of the virus from animal to person and from person to person are still unclear. According to Wayne Marasco, an infectious disease specialist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Boston, USA), scientific work in this direction is limited by the restrictions imposed by the authorities of the Middle Eastern countries, primarily Saudi Arabia, where the virus is mainly spread. on the way of scientists from other countries of the world. Marasco said he hoped that the last case in which the virus was transferred to another continent,will force the Saudi authorities to reconsider their position.