CARE FOR YOU "MERS VIRUS"
South Korea confirmed two deaths from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) last week
after 25 cases were reported since May 20. More than 680 people have
been put into quarantine in South Korea in a bid to stop the virus from
spreading.
Experts presume the virus originated from camels, prompting the World
Health Organisation (WHO) to warn against contact with the animals and
to avoid raw and undercooked camel milk and meat.
China quarantined 64 people after the son of a South Korean MERS
patient ignored doctors’ orders and flew from Seoul to Hong Kong, then
travelled by bus to the southern city of Huizhou.
With more than 1,000 cases of MERS reported worldwide, SBS spoke to
Gary Crameri, a research scientist at CSIRO, to find out more about the
virus.
What is MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome?
It’s actually a coronavirus so it’s a virus similar to SARS that
emerged out of China in 2003 and caused a huge global outbreak. This
virus is similar to SARS but unlike SARS it’s not as transmissible
between people so it hasn’t caused the same global outbreak that SARS
did at that time.
What are the symptoms of the virus?
It’s a respiratory disease so it’s not unlike severe flu, but it does
cause mortality in over 40 per cent of the people who are infected, so
it’s a very severe disease.
How do you catch the MERS virus and is it contagious?
It’s certainly contagious. It’s not as contagious as SARS was,
thankfully, so that’s meant that we haven’t had the rapid spread. But it
certainly will spread from person to person, probably via contact with
respiratory secretions, so it requires very close contact, whereas SARS
was spread quite easily so this is not quite as contagious as SARS was.
What can people do to prevent catching MERS?
It’s very much still a disease out of the Middle East, mainly out of
Saudi Arabia. So for people who are not there it certainly doesn’t pose
any threat at all. People who go to those countries, there’s a lot of
warnings about the potential areas where it could come from. Camels
appear to be a source of the virus. Really, just taking general health
precautions in those countries will protect people.
Australia has an estimated feral camel population of about 300,000 & USA has 250,000,Does that make Australians and Americans , at risk of the virus?
We’re actually doing work at the moment to determine whether
Australian or US camels are infected with the virus. They certainly have the
potential to be – they’re the same species of camels that are through
the Middle East. But look, any of the countries that have camels need to
take precautions.
The MERS virus has been found in the Middle East and South Korea. Do OTHERS have to be wary of traveling to these places?
Look, certainly to the Middle East. It’s an ongoing outbreak and has
been for a long time now. And certainly countries through the Middle
East are taking strong actions to try and contain the virus and they’ve
been quite successful at that. But there still are sporadic outbreaks
going on, it’s still an ongoing problem there. Outside of the Middle
East it is incredibly unlikely that anybody would come into contact with
anybody who’s infected and this small cluster in Korea is not unlike
the other minor events that have occurred in other countries outside the
Middle East over the last year and a half.
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