The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced on Friday it had convened emergency talks on the deadly Mers virus, but said the move did not mean it was hiking its global alert level. WHO health security chief Keiji Fukuda said the meeting on the virus, which is striking hardest in Saudi Arabia, would take place on Tuesday in the form of a telephone conference of officials from affected countries and experts around the world. “We really want the international community to be in a position to be ready for any possibility,” Fukuda told reporters, insisting it was a “proactive move” rather than a sign of rising alarm.
“It means that if in the future we do see some kind of explosion, or some big outbreak, or we think the situation has really changed, we will already have a group of emergency committee experts who are really up to speed, so we don’t have to go through a steep learning curve.”
The first recorded Mers death was in June 2012 in Saudi Arabia. The number of infections has ticked up steadily, with a flurry this April, May and June taking it to 79.
Forty-three Mers patients have died to date, an extremely high rate of 54 per cent, compared to nine per cent of the 8,273 recorded patients with Sars, which was centred on Asia.
Experts are struggling to understand Mers, which stands for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus. Like its cousin Sars (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), it has flu-like symptoms. But it differs in that it causes kidney failure.