The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome—How Worried Should We Be?

Perlman, Stanley

One year after MERS first came to light, all cases have been found to have a Middle East connection, with approximately 70% occurring in Saudi Arabia. Within Saudi Arabia, the first cases were recognized in the Al-Ahsa governorate, an area located in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia, which remains the epicenter of the outbreak. Cases have been identified in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Tunisia, in all instances in patients with a history of recent travel to the Middle East (Fig. 1 ). Global travel is extremely common, so it may be just a matter of time before MERS-CoV cases are identified on all continents. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published definitions of confirmed and probable cases, which provides a uniform approach to evaluating patients with suspected disease (http://www .cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/case-def.html).