Second U.S. MERS Infection Found In Orlando

Categories: Florida

Second U.S. MERS Infection Found In Orlando

MERS Virus. Credit: National Institute of Health

ORLANDO Florida — The U.S Center for Disease Control and Florida Department of Health officials are investigating the second case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection in the United States.

Officials say that the patient in the second case is a health care provider in Sauidi Arabia who traveled by plane on May 1st from Saudi Arabia to London to Boston to Atlanta and finally to Orlando, Florida.

Florida’s State Surgeon General and Secretary of Health John H. Armstrong said during a press conference that the patient was visiting family and did not visit any theme parks.

The patient was admitted to a yet-to-be-identified Florida hospital on May 8th and is currently in airborne isolation.

This latest MERS case comes just ten days after the first confirmed infection was discovered on May 2, 2014.

As of May 12, the World Health Organization has recorded 538 lab-confirmed cases of MERS worldwide. 145 deaths have been attributed to MERS worldwide.

MERS-CoV was first reported in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. It is different from any other coronavirus previously found in people. CDC health official don’t know where the virus came from or exactly how it spreads. But officials say that it likely came from an animal source.

MERS Symptoms:

Most people infected with MERS-CoV developed severe respiratory illness with symptoms of fever, cough, and shortness of breath. About 30% of people with MERS have died. Most of the people who died had an underlying medical condition. Some infected people had mild symptoms or no symptoms at all.