A few weeks ago Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, caused something of a stir when she said the following: “Looking at the overall global situation, my greatest concern right now is the novel coronavirus.”
She was referring to a new SARS-like virus now called MERS-CoV (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus) that’s been infecting people in the Middle East, principally in Saudi Arabia. There have been at least 64 confirmed cases, according to the World Health Organization.
To get a better grasp on MERS, and what it might mean for the United States and upcoming pilgrimages, I recently spoke with Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Hotez is leading the development of a SARS vaccine.
There’s a lot researchers don’t know about the new virus, but here’s what they do know, Hotez says:
- Of the more than five dozen reported cases there has been a pretty high mortality, 60 percent. This is a little bit misleading because the milder cases of the disease may not be reported. “I don’t think we really have a true handle on the mortality rate,” he said.
- The evidence suggests to that while MERS is transmissible from person to person, the rate has been low. That doesn’t mean the virus can’t mutate, and in a couple of months be much more easily transmissible.
There are currently U.S. State Department travel restrictions for health reasons to Saudi Arabia.
However, as Scientific American recently noted, the Muslim month of fasting, Ramadan, begins July 9 and could draw as many as 2 million people from around the globe to the holy sites of Saudi Arabia in a pilgrimage called umrah. And then there’s the even larger hajj pilgrimage in October. The World Health Organization will have to make a difficult call on whether to issue any warnings as a result of the disease. Already the European Union’s version of the CDC has advised: “EU citizens travelling to the Middle East need to be aware of the presence of MERS-CoV in this geographical area and the small risk of infection.”
So far there is evidence that MERS is not deterring would-be Algerian pilgrims from hajj and umrah.
For now, Hotez urges people not to worry too much. “It’s a delicate balance, you want to raise an appropriate level of concern, but you don’t want to make people overly worried,” he said. In Texas a far bigger concern would be diseases such as West Nile Virus, which in a surprisingly strong outbreak in 2012 killed 89 people.
Of course that would change if MERS somehow becomes easily transmittable, and is spread around the world after inflows into Saudi Arabia for the umrah or hajj.