Camels May Transmit New Middle Eastern Virus 163
sciencehabit writes "Ever since people in the Middle East started dying of a mysterious new infection last year, scientists have been trying to pinpoint the source of the outbreak. Now they may finally have found a clue in an unlikely population: retired racing camels. Countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates produce and consume large amounts of camel meat. The authors of the paper point out that huge numbers of camels are imported to the Middle East from African countries as well as from Australia, where the animals were introduced in the 19th century and which now has an estimated 1 million feral camels. (Australia started exporting camels to Saudi Arabia for meat production in 2002.) That raises the possibility that African or Australian bats harbor the virus and camels carried it to the Middle East."
No bats around here. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:MERS Worldwide apocalypse (Score:4, Insightful)
For the Hajj, the Saudis screen everyone coming into the country for visible sickness.
And you can't even get a visa without providing proof of vaccinations.
They may have backwards laws, but they are well aware of the risks surrounding outbreaks of disease.
That said, they haven't been very cooperative with the global medical community in addressing MERS.
Re:Fear!!! Be afraid!! (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF are you talking about.
A. This has nothing to do with fear mongering against Muslims, in exactly the same way that reporting on SARS had nothing to do with fear mongering against China. I say this even though China and Saudi Arabia went about managing their outbreaks in exactly the same way: pretending it wasn't happening.
B. http://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/ [cdc.gov]
Total Cases: 94
Deaths: 46
C. This isn't a flu virus, this is a deadlier cousin of SARS, which spread to ~3 dozen countries in a matter of weeks
This is the promotion of unrealistic fear, nothing more.
You sound like the boy who wouldn't cry wolf.
A novel respiratory virus that's killed 50% of known patients is extremely deserving of "the promotion of [del]unrealistic[/del] fear"
The sooner we can figure out where it originates, the sooner we can wipe out that animal reservoir and rely on human quarantines to prevent further spread.