Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Oct 1;210(7):1067-72.
doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiu150. Epub 2014 Mar 11.

Prevalence of MERS-CoV nasal carriage and compliance with the Saudi health recommendations among pilgrims attending the 2013 Hajj

Ziad A Memish  1 , Abdullah Assiri  2 , Malak Almasri  2 , Rafat F Alhakeem  2 , Abdulhafeez Turkestani  3 , Abdullah A Al Rabeeah  2 , Jaffar A Al-Tawfiq  4 , Abdullah Alzahrani  2 , Essam Azhar  5 , Hatem Q Makhdoom  6 , Waleed H Hajomar  7 , Ali M Al-Shangiti  8 , Saber Yezli  2
Affiliations

Prevalence of MERS-CoV nasal carriage and compliance with the Saudi health recommendations among pilgrims attending the 2013 Hajj

Ziad A Memish et al. J Infect Dis. .

Abstract

Background: Annually, Saudi Arabia is the host of the Hajj mass gathering. We aimed to determine the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) nasal carriage rate among pilgrims performing the 2013 Hajj and to describe the compliance with the Saudi Ministry of Health vaccine recommendations.

Method: Nasopharyngeal samples were collected from 5235 adult pilgrims from 22 countries and screened for MERS-CoV using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. Information regarding the participants' age, gender, country of origin, medical conditions, and vaccination history were obtained.

Results: The mean age of the screened population was 51.8 years (range, 18-93 years) with a male/female ratio of 1.17:1. MERS-CoV was not detected in any of the samples tested (3210 pre-Hajj and 2025 post-Hajj screening). According to the vaccination documents, all participants had received meningococcal vaccination and the majority of those from at-risk countries were vaccinated against yellow fever and polio. Only 22% of the pilgrims (17.5% of those ≥65 years and 36.3% of diabetics) had flu vaccination, and 4.4% had pneumococcal vaccination.

Conclusion: There was no evidence of MERS-CoV nasal carriage among Hajj pilgrims. While rates of compulsory vaccinations uptake were high, uptake of pneumococcal and flu seasonal vaccinations were low, including among the high-risk population.

Keywords: Hajj pilgrimage; MERS-CoV; nasal carriage; screening; vaccination.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Percentage contribution from each country and geographical spread of the 5235 screened pilgrims.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. The Who Mers-Cov Research Group - State of Knowledge and Data Gaps of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in Humans. PLoS Curr. 2013;5 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zaki AM, van Boheemen S, Bestebroer TM, Osterhaus AD, Fouchier RA. Isolation of a novel coronavirus from a man with pneumonia in Saudi Arabia. N Engl J Med. 2012;367:1814–20. - PubMed
    1. van Boheemen S, de Graaf M, Lauber C, et al. Genomic characterization of a newly discovered coronavirus associated with acute respiratory distress syndrome in humans. MBio. 2012;3:ii. e00473–12. - PMC - PubMed
    1. WHO. Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)–update. 2014. http://www.who.int/csr/don/2014_01_27mers/en/index.html. Accessed 2 February 2014.
    1. Assiri A, McGeer A, Perl TM, et al. Hospital outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus. N Engl J Med. 2013;369:407–16. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms