An Indian worker wears a mouth and nose mask as he touches a camel at his Saudi employer's farm on May 12, 2014, outside Riyadh. (FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP/Getty Images)[/caption]
Amid growing fears of the spread of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS CoV), it was announced last week that the Saudi authorities had reassessed the number of deaths caused by the disease in the Kingdom. As a result, Saudi Arabia “revised sharply upward the number of cases of the new MERS virus within its borders and said it had been fatal in more than 40 percent of the cases,” according to the New York Times. The Saudis also announced they would begin to test their entire population of camels and other livestock for signs of the virus.
That reaction seemed warranted amid headlines such as “Iran: MERS virus reaches its 20th country” in the New York Times on May 29, 2014, and “Pandemic fears as 39 are killed by a virus” in British tabloid The Sun. That article went on to explain: “A lethal virus spread through coughing, sneezing and touching has now claimed 39 lives—sparking fears of a global pandemic. The coronavirus—dubbed Middle East Respiratory Syndrome—is thought to be eight times deadlier than SARS, which killed 800 worldwide in 2003.”
But that Sun article dates from June 21, 2013, and far from “MERS moving rapidly through Saudi Arabia & Europe,” as its subhead claims, most international cases have been the result of air travel, rather than rapid contagion from person to person.
Indeed, more sober analysis reveals some obvious facts normally hidden by the usual loose reporting, and is readily available. London’s Guardian newspaper reported on the results of a study conducted by a team of Dutch researchers to identify the source of infection, which found “tests on a group of 50 retired racing camels in Oman proved 100%positive . . . The animals came from various places in Oman, suggesting the virus or one like it was widespread in camels across the country . . . The team also tested 105 camels in the Canary Islands, where they serve the tourism industry and found 15 of those were infected, or 14% . . . it is also possible that the virus was brought in by one of the three oldest Canary Island camels, who arrived from Morocco more than 18 years ago.” In other words, the MERS virus is almost certainly already widespread across the whole of the Middle East and North Africa, and has been for years.
Similarly, rates of infection are doubtless sensationalized by poor journalism: one Reuters report claimed “the virus, which until two years ago had never been seen in humans but has now killed more than 300 people worldwide” would suggest that the virus had only recently started to cross the species boundary. Yet the BBC reports that “a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found “‘identical’ MERS viruses in camels and their owner.” Given that Arabs have been interacting with camels for the past 3,000 years, it would be highly unlikely that the virus had not crossed the species barrier before, and that what actually happened in 2012 was that the virus was genetically identified and named. Before then, hundreds, if not thousands, of people had probably been infected and died, or even recovered in blissful ignorance of the identity of the virus afflicting them. One of the other under-reported issues is that most of those who succumb to the virus are already in hospital with existing chronic conditions.
To put MERS deaths in context, the Saudi Gazette reports that “according to a report released by the World Health Organization, 1.2 million die annually as the result of traffic accidents and each year more than 50 million are injured and disabled around the globe. In Saudi Arabia, there are approximately 7,100 road fatalities every year and 38,000 seriously injured individuals, of whom 7 percent are permanently disabled.”
A little less reflexive Saudi neurosis when it comes to criticism would doubtless have helped, but far more useful would have been some sober analysis of the real issues. In other words, “Keep Calm and Carry On.”
All views expressed in this blog post are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, The Majalla.
