WHO Raises Concerns About the Spread of MERS

The World Health Organization has expressed its concern about the international spread of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), as the number of known infections has jumped to alarming new levels in affected countries over the past few days.

According to the World Health Organization, the MERS virus emerged in April 2012. Since that time, 253 laboratory-confirmed cases of the viral infection were identified, 93 of which resulted in death. The majority of these cases appeared to have originated from the Middle East, heavily affecting Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. A handful of Asian and European countries have also seen isolated cases of the disease, although it is suspected that these cases were initially contracted during travel to the Middle East.

However, within the last two weeks, cases of MERS have risen considerably, with Saudi Arabia alone reporting 48 cases on Wednesday and Thursday.-- indicating a significant outbreak of the virus.

This outbreak and others like it have been called "worrisome" by who officials who are concerned that an increased prevalence of the virus will promote its global spread through international travel.

"Approximately 75% of the recently reported cases are secondary cases, meaning that they are considered to have acquired the infection from another case through human-to-human transmission," WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Dr Ala Alwan said in a public announcement.

This would indicate a great likelihood of more outbreaks, as outbreaks occur when a virus branches out, infecting human-to-human after infecting an initial source. Still, Alwan did explain that the majority of these new human-to-human cases occurred in healthcare facilities and affected mainly healthcare workers.

In light of this, and in an escalated effort to keep the virus contained, the WHO has offered its assistance and international expertise to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- who have taken the brunt of these outbreaks.

According to the WHO public announcement, the resulting investigations will hopefully determine the transmission chain of the most recent outbreaks, determining prevention methods and assessing whether or not the virus is currently evolving to become a more contagious strain.

The WHO announcement was made on April 23 from the WHO regional office in Cairo, Egypt.