Health Alert! New Middle East virus spread in hospitals (640 hits)
The new MERS virus, which has infected 64 people and killed 38 of them, is mostly spread in hospitals and it will take special care to prevent bigger outbreaks, experts reported on Wednesday. An investigation into the outbreak in Saudi Arabia showed 21 people were infected as patients who unknowingly went from one clinic to another, spreading the virus. It can spread quickly in the hospital if strict precautions are not taken – including isolating patients, putting masks on both the patients and the health care workers and strict hand hygiene, the researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
{...} MERS has not been seen in the United States, although a handful of travelers have been tested for the virus. Perl said the facilities in Saudi Arabia weren’t much different from similarly rural clinics in the United States. “The place is clean,” she said. “The technology that was available there was similar to what we might find here.” The researchers were not able to determine if MERS spreads before people start showing symptoms. They also couldn’t say if the virus was spread in the air, or in droplets that might be spread between people who are very close to one another or by touching surfaces.
"Our investigation showed some surprising similarities between MERS and SARS. Both are very deadly viruses and easily transferred between people, and even between health care facilities," Perl said. As with SARS, some people seem to spread the virus more easily than others, she added. {...} The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say anyone returning from the Middle East with severe acute respiratory infections should be isolated and tested for MERS. Health care workers who care for them need to use special precautions, including gowns and face masks.
