Comparative Analysis of Eleven Healthcare-Associated Outbreaks of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (Mers-Cov) from 2015 to 2017

Bernard-Stoecklin, Sibylle; Nikolay, Birgit; Assiri, Abdullah; Bin Saeed, Abdul Aziz; Ben Embarek, Peter Karim; El Bushra, Hassan; Ki, Moran; Malik, Mamunur Rahman; Fontanet, Arnaud; Cauchemez, Simon; Van Kerkhove, Maria D.

Study design. We analyzed epidemiological datasets of laboratory-confirmed MERS patients and focused our study on eleven healthcare-associated outbreaks that were reported in KSA and ROK since 2015, when policies and procedures for case identification and comprehensive contact identification and follow up became systematic and were implemented by affected countries. The data used documented MERS-CoV infections reported to WHO under the International Health Regulations (2005). We only included clusters of cases/outbreaks that were linked to healthcare facilities. Supplemental ROK case-based data were provided as a detailed line list of the Korean MERS cases included in a published study 17 . We defined laboratory-confirmed MERS-CoV infection as following WHO guidelines 4, 37 .