CIDRAP on the new Saudi MERS numbers '133 detections including 92 fatal cases'

CIDRAP on the new Saudi MERS numbers '133 detections including 92 fatal cases'

From Will at THE OTHER NEWS:

CIDRAP on the new Saudi MERS numbers '133 detections including 92 fatal cases' HT: Croft.

Via CIDRAP, Robert Roos writes: Review raises Saudi MERS case count 20%, death toll 48%. After summarizing the KSA MOH statements today, the post concludes:

Experts who commented on today's announcement welcomed the Saudi move toward greater transparency and expressed hope that it continues and increases. 

Connie Savor Price, MD, chief of infectious diseases at Denver Health and Hospital, commented, "When the new [minister of health] came into office, I do believe one of his priorities was to re-examine the data to ensure experts were getting accurate data to inform interventions. More rigorous case findings identified the additional cases and deaths that you heard about today. My sense is that most of these cases are healthcare associated." 

She denied any knowledge of the reasons for Memish's dismissal, but said she found the timing of today's announcement "interesting." 

"The MOH seems to want to be clear that they are here to collaborate and value transparency. That is a step in the right direction," she added. 

Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, who has done consulting work on MERS-CoV in the Middle East, said it's unclear why the additional cases were not reported earlier and what implications they have for understanding the MERS outbreak in Saudi Arabia. He is director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, publisher of CIDRAP News. 

"We welcome this new level of transparency and hope it will continue with more detailed information about these cases and what will be done so that this doesn't happen in the future," he said. 

"It also reinforces the point that we need much more information about the risk factors for transmission, which can be answered only by the completion of a comprehensive case control study.  

"The bottom line message that we've got to understand is that this is not a Kingdom of Saudi Arabia problem or even a Middle East problem; this is an international problem," he said. "All it would take is one super-shedder of this virus to land in Tokyo or New York or London or Toronto, and this situation would turn on a dime."

Related:

Via his VDU's blog, Dr. Ian Mackay writes: MERS-CoV charting on hold after 113 new cases reported without details... Excerpt:

With the announcement overnight that a bunch (133 detections including 92 fatal cases) of old laboratory confirmed MERS-CoV detection had been found, but without any specific data to identify them, I will not be posting any further MERS-related charts. 

I believe there is a big WHO Disease Outbreak News update coming soon and it will provide all the detail - we bloggers will need to take a week off from our day jobs to add this detail to our line lists - but I'll resume charts some time after those data appear. 

This is all obviously being dumped at the feet of the stood down Deputy Minister of Public Health whose reputation for total control was well reported. Let's not forget that Minister, Abdullah al-Rabeeah, was stood down 21-April by King Abdullah. While Prof Memish obviously loved a good paper, and that was his chosen method of science communication (I've talked about that as a less-than-ideal route for public health matters), but I personally have no evidence for or against the scope of his control over this latest debacle. 

This is Acting Health Minister Adel Faqih's second try for "transparency" in reporting MERS. On the first try, we were all impressed with the new details, until the details began to vanish and the infographics had nothing new. This time we have tables plus infographics, and one big announcement, but we need a lot more.

Especially we need a lot more specialists in the KSA MOH to tell the Acting Minister that he can't fire his way to a MERS-free Kingdom by the start of the next Hajj in October. 

All he can really do is tell the world the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and hope the world will help him find the answer.