Malaysia is stepping up its health-screening efforts at all its entry points after neighboring Thailand reported its first case of MERS, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, last week.
Malaysia's deputy health minister Hilmi Yahaya said that the country has already started monitoring people's body temperatures at airports and it is stepping up the effort to include all entry points. People who arrive in the country are also being advised on precautions they need to take to avoid being infected with the disease.
Thailand, whose first MERS case was of a 75-year-old man from Oman, is also improving its screening measures at its three border checkpoints with Malaysia. The patient is already in stable condition, but the 94 individuals who came in contact with him are still being monitored.
The country is making preparations ahead of September when Muslim pilgrims travel to Saudi Arabia, the place where the MERS virus was first discovered, to perform hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca which every adult Muslim is supposed to make at least once in his or her lifetime. The religious affairs department estimates that more than 10,000 people from Thailand will probably perform hajj.
The country has already set up thermal scanners to screen people coming from at-risk countries. A special section at the airport is also being set up to process those who come from at-risk countries.
Although Muslims will not be stopped from attending hajj, they will be monitored for up to a month when they return to ensure that they are free of the infection.
South Korea, which has been dealing with MERS since May, also reported two additional deaths from MERS on Monday. It also had three new cases, which brings the total number of infections to 172. The Ministry of Health and Welfare maintains that no community transmission has taken place and almost all transmissions took place in hospitals.
As of Monday, the number of people who are in isolation being monitored for the suspected infection has gone down to 3,833, a significant drop from 4,035 on the previous days. About 9,300 people who were isolated have already been released after they were found to not have the symptoms of MERS, which has an incubation period of up to 14 days.
The number of individuals in South Korea who died from MERS is now listed at 27, according to South Korea's health ministry, with the country having a fatality rate of about 15.7 percent. Most of the fatalities were older adults or those who already had existing health conditions that were made worse by the respiratory disease. So far, 50 previously infected patients have recovered from the illness.
MERS is a viral respiratory disease caused by a coronavirus (MERS‐CoV) that was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Typical symptoms include fever, cough and shortness of breath. Pneumonia is common, but not always present. Gastrointestinal symptoms, including diarrhea, have also been reported. According to the WHO fact sheet on MERS, approximately 36 percent of reported patients with MERS have died. Currently, there is no vaccine. Treatment is based on the patient's condition.
Photo: NIAID | Flickr
