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
Review
. 2016;10(3):331-8.
doi: 10.1586/17476348.2016.1150784.

Drivers of MERS-CoV transmission: what do we know?

Jaffar A Al-Tawfiq  1   2 , Ziad A Memish  3   4
Affiliations
Review

Drivers of MERS-CoV transmission: what do we know?

Jaffar A Al-Tawfiq et al. Expert Rev Respir Med. 2016.

Abstract

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) emerged in 2012 has since resulted in sporadic cases, intra-familial transmission and major outbreaks in healthcare settings. The clinical picture of MERS-CoV includes asymptomatic infections, mild or moderately symptomatic cases and fatal disease. Transmissions of MERS-CoV within healthcare settings are facilitated by overcrowding, poor compliance with basic infection control measures, unrecognized infections, the superspreaders phenomenon and poor triage systems. The actual contributing factors to the spread of MERS-CoV are yet to be systematically studied, but data to date suggest viral, host and environmental factors play a major role. Here, we summarize the known factors for the diverse transmission of MERS-CoV.

Keywords: Coronavirus; Health Care Facilities; MERS-CoV; Prevention; Transmission.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The dynamics of the transmissions of MERS-CoV involves possibly small animals such as bats, dromedary camels in Africa with the importation of camels into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with subsequent zoonotic transmission,. These sporadic cases then lead to intra-familial transmission (house) and outbreaks in the healthcare settings (hospital).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. World Health Organization http://www.who.int/emergencies/mers-cov/en/ Available from:
    1. Memish ZA, Zumla AI, Al-Hakeem RF, et al. Family cluster of middle east respiratory syndrome coronavirus infections. N Engl J Med. 2013;368(26):2487–2494. - PubMed
    1. Omrani AS, Matin MA, Haddad Q, et al. A family cluster of middle east respiratory syndrome coronavirus infections related to a likely unrecognized asymptomatic or mild case. Int J Infect Dis. 2013;17(9):e668–e672. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Abroug F, Slim A, Ouanes-Besbes L, et al. Family cluster of middle east respiratory syndrome coronavirus infections, Tunisia, 2013. Emerg Infect Dis. 2014;20(9):1527–1530. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Oboho IK, Tomczyk SM, Al-Asmari AM, et al. 2014 MERS-CoV outbreak in Jeddah–a link to health care facilities. N Engl J Med. 2015;372(9):846–854.• An interesting study of one of the largest outbreak in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources