Sunday, October 23, 2016

KSA Announces 2 New MERS Cases & 2 Recent Deaths

















#11,838

The Saudi MOH caught up with their MERS reporting after going 48 hours without an update, posting numbers for the 22nd and 23rd of October.

Yesterday's report showed no new cases, but one death - that of the 53 y.o. male from Abha who was listed in critical condition last Thursday. 


Today's report adds 2 new cases.  First, yet another nosocomial case from Hufoof - the 3rd in the past week or so.  This patient is described as a male, age 55, who had already died at the time of this announcement.

The second new case is a primary case from Arar; a 58 y.o. male listed in critical condition.


Posthumous announcements - and cases that are already listed in critical condition when announced - are worthy of notice since they might  indicate delayed detection and/or isolation, thus raising the chances of seeing additional hospital acquired cases.

At this point, however, we don't know the onset of illness date, or date of diagnosis for these cases. 

After going the first two weeks of October without a single case, in the past 8 days Saudi Arabia has now announced 10 cases, with 4 of those listed as secondary cases (2 HCWs & 2 Patients) exposed at two different health care facilities.