Silent War to Emerging or Re-emerging Respiratory Infection Diseases Badly Kept in Mind

Zheng, Ya-Li; Gao, Zhan-Cheng

Patients infected with MERS-CoV can be symptomatic or asymptomatic. As the functional cellular receptor for MERS-CoV, dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP4, also known as CD26) is expressed in the human bronchial epithelium and kidneys, [21] clinical features mostly include respiratory system symptoms and renal dysfunction or failure, range from influenza-like symptoms to acute respiratory distress syndrome and multi-organ failure resulting in death, [22] about 1/3 of patients also had gastrointestinal symptoms. [13] The median age of persons with laboratory-confirmed MERS-CoV infection is 50 years (range, 9 months to 99 years), and 66% are male. [12] People who progress to requiring admission to an Intensive Care Unit often have a history of diabetes, renal failure, chronic lung disease, and immunocompromised, they usually have a febrile upper respiratory tract illness at the onset with rapid progression to pneumonia within a week. [23, 24] There is still no either specific therapeutic administration or vaccine so far. Supportive treatment is the mainstay of management.