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Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is a viral respiratory illness that is new to humans.
It was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and has since spread to several other countries, including the United States.
Most people infected with MERS-CoV developed severe acute respiratory illness, including fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Many of them have died.
Countries in or near the Arabian Peninsula with MERS cases: Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Yemen.
Countries with travel-associated MERS cases: Algeria, Austria, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom (UK), and United States of America (USA).
(http://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/)
MERS is caused by a coronavirus from the same family as the one that triggered China’s deadly 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
(http://www.todayonline.com/world/thailand-confirms-first-mers-case-health-ministry)
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8 July 2015
Seoul reports 34 fatality from #MERS, but there have been no new cases in 3 days in S Korea http://bit.ly/1NQDuBc
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27 June 2015
HONG KONG HAS NO CASE OF MERS although 4 cases have been tested so far.
Another #Mers scare in #HongKong as South Korean man with fever is isolated in hospital http://bit.ly/1IjpRug
An MTR employee stands by a restricted area next to a closed clinic (L) at the Tsing Yi MTR station in Hong Kong on June 10, 2015. — PHOTO: AFP
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HONG KONG (AFP) – Images on the local media in Hong Kong have again shown people wearing hazmat suits at a major subway station, and workers cleaning escalators and mopping the floors after a 17-year-old South Korean man with a fever sought medical care at a clinic in the station.
The city’s health minister said the man was being tested for Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers). “Today there is a patient, he is a young Korean male and came to Hong Kong from the US passing through South Korea. He’s been in Hong Kong for around 10 days but today he had a fever,” the city’s Health Minister Ko Wing-man told reporters.
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25 June 2015
Two more #MERS deaths confirmed in South Korea. – 29 deaths – 77 in hospital – 180 cases http://bit.ly/1KdF1CU
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The Straits Times Two #SouthKorea hospitals suspend services in bid to stop spread of #MERS http://bit.ly/1Lt7fK7
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22 June 2015
Korean deaths from MERS: 27
Malay Mail Online Two more deaths, three new MERS cases reported in S. Korea
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Malaysia steps up health screening for #MERS at entry points http://tdy.sg/1FvNFVo
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KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia has stepped up health screenings at all entry points into the country, after the first case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) was reported in neighboring Thailand last week.
The Southeast Asian nation, which shares a 650 km (400 mile) land border with Thailand, has already begun monitoring body temperatures at the airports, Deputy Health Minister Hilmi Yahaya said in a statement to state news agency Bernama. “Now, we are going further to include all entry points,” he said.
Visitors entering the country would also be briefed on precautions to be taken to avoid being infected with the disease, the minister said in the statement. There have so far been no cases of MERS reported in Malaysia.
http://www.todayonline.com/world/malaysia-steps-health-screening-mers-entry-points —
Thailand to monitor people returning from their haj pilgrimage for up to a month http://tdy.sg/1LelrW8
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Haj pilgrimage spurs new MERS outbreak fear in Thailand
Over 10,000 Thais to visit Saudi Arabia BANGKOK — The Public Health Ministry and airport authorities have stepped up preventative measures to stop the spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) when more than 10,000 Thai Muslim pilgrims travel to Saudi Arabia for the haj pilgrimage in September. The country’s first confirmed case of MERS, a 75-year-old man from Oman, raised concerns over the possible infection of people going to and from Saudi Arabia. According to the Department of Religious Affairs, 10,400 people from Thailand are likely to attend the Muslim pilgrimage, which will take place in late September. Visitors will begin leaving for Riyadh in August, and return as late as October. … However, when people return they will be monitored for 14 days to a month to make sure they are safe from infection, Dr Satitramai said. If anyone develops a fever or flu-like symptoms, they will be placed in isolation and observed at a hospital. http://www.todayonline.com/world/asia/haj-pilgrimage-spurs-new-mers-outbreak-fear-thailand — 20 June 2015
More than 80 exposed to Mers virus in Thailand http://str.sg/wwK
Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health revealed that the Mers virus was detected in a 75-year-old man from Oman on Thursday. Yesterday evening, it said in a press statement that 85 people had come into contact with him. It was not clear though whether all 85, including a taxi driver, airline passengers and medical staff, have been traced and quarantined.
— IS THERE DANGER HERE?
Astro AWANI MERS-CoV: Police looking for Brunei woman who escaped from Miri Hospital http://english.astroawani.com/malaysia-news/mers-cov-police-looking-brunei-woman-who-escaped-miri-hospital-62471 … via @501Awani
MIRI: Police are looking for a Brunei woman, suspected of being infected with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), who escaped from Miri Hospital last Friday. Miri police chief ACP Gan Tian Kee said the 76-year-old woman was admitted to the hospital at 9.05 am last June 6 on suspicion of being infected with MERS-CoV, following her return from performing the umrah in Mekah. He said the woman went to perform the umrah on May 10 and returned last May 22. “She was admitted to Miri Hospital while waiting for the results of her phlegm test and other samples taken from her,” he told Bernama here today. Gan said the woman went missing from the hospital a few hours after her family, who went to the hospital, requested that she be discharged. … He said family members then took the woman out of Miri Hospital without a doctor’s consent at 7.12 pm.
20 June 2015 MERS HAD LANDED IN MALAYSIA in the person of a Johore man. He died on 13 April 2015.
joolee Actually, #MERS has already hit #malaysia; Johor man who died last year is Asia’s patient zero. http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/04/16/MERS-detected-in-malaysia/ …
Star
Wednesday April 16, 2014 MYT 10:15:42 PM
Johor man first person in Asia to succumb to MERS
PUTRAJAYA: The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has killed its first victim in Asia, a Malaysian man who developed respiratory complications after returning from Mecca. The 54-year-old man, from Batu Pahat, Johor, had arrived in Malaysia on March 29 after performing the umrah. He died on Apr 13 after being admitted to the Hospital Sultanah Nora Ismail for three days, following complaints of fever, cough and breathing difficulties. http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/04/16/MERS-detected-in-malaysia/ — “You see airlines cancelling some flights out of Taiwan, out of China, to Korea, and tour groups beginning to cancel.”
TopFinancialBlog MERS outbreak now No. 1 aviation sector risk – lessor: PARIS (Reuters) – Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MER… http://bit.ly/1RhbVkP
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) has risen to the top of the list of risks facing the aviation industry, the head of a leading aircraft lessor said, outstripping traditional concerns about fuel and currencies. An outbreak of MERS in South Korea that began last month and is the largest outside Saudi Arabia has infected 166 people, killing 24 of them. “You see airlines cancelling some flights out of Taiwan, out of China, to Korea, and tour groups beginning to cancel. So we hope we get over this quickly and that the world has learned from SARS, but the jury’s out,” Robert Martin, chief executive of Singapore-based leasing firm BOC Aviation, told Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/19/us-airshow-france-mers-idUSKBN0OZ2A720150619?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews — 19 June 2015 The MERS outbreak in South Korea 24 deaths 165 infected 6,700 people in quarantine. —
Bangkok’s Bumrungrad Hospital treated Thailand’s first MERS case – http://news.asiaone.com/news/asia/bangkoks-bumrungrad-hospital-treated-thailands-first-mers-case#xtor=CS2-4 …
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Shares of Thai aviation firms, hoteliers fall after first #MERS case confirmed http://tdy.sg/1QFTV8R
Shares in Thai aviation companies and hotels fell on Friday with hotel operator Central Plaza Hotel plunging 6.6 percent. Airports operator Airports of Thailand dropped 4.2 percent to a more than three-week low. —
ST Foreign Desk #Thailand took four days to confirm first #Mers case; 59 being monitored http://bit.ly/1flKL0v
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RT 
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Thailand confirms first MERS case: health ministry
LATEST: Thailand confirms first #MERS case http://tdy.sg/1LkzR4Z
The health minister said 59 others were being monitored for the virus, including three of the man’s relatives who traveled with him to Bangkok. http://www.todayonline.com/world/thailand-confirms-first-mers-case-health-ministry —
Yahoo Singapore 
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Toon Seri Anthraxxxx Korean government will pay you USD 3,000 if you get infected with #MERS while holidaying in #SouthKorea http://bit.ly/1GudSYc
RocketNews24 
The Associated Press Head of the World Health Organization reassures South Korea as MERS death toll reaches 23 a month into outbreak http://apne.ws/1LkhhtY
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JUST IN: #SouthKorea‘s Hotel Shilla temporarily shuts Jeju hotel as former guest contracts #Mers http://bit.ly/1epEYGQ
The Straits Times 
New York Times World A patient at the Samsung Medical Center became a “superspreader” of MERS after a misdiagnosis. http://nyti.ms/1epg3mV
SEOUL, South Korea — It is the jewel of South Korea’s medical service: a 1,900-bed hospital of steel and glass owned by the Samsung conglomerate. It is also where a 35-year-old man whose symptoms were misdiagnosed as pneumonia languished for three days in an overcrowded emergency room and hallway, where he coughed up sputum teeming with the Middle East respiratory syndrome virus and exposed dozens.
Doctors of the renowned hospital, the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, were the first to confirm the disease, known as MERS, in another patient a week earlier but failed to make the connection between the two cases. Investigators now say the misdiagnosed patient, awaiting a vacant bed in a general ward upstairs, wheezed and expectorated in common areas with no oversight, turning into a MERS “superspreader.” —
Nearly half of all confirmed MERS cases in South Korea have been traced to the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul. http://nyti.ms/1epg0Yl
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Korea’s best hospital –Samsung Medical Center in Seoul – has 2 doctors with MERS and 71 infected. http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2015/06/116_180832.html …
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weehingthong 