MERS back in South Korea

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-10-korean-mers-related-death-july.html

The 66-year-old man was diagnosed in June after contracting the virus at the Samsung Medical Centre in Seoul—one of the major epicentres of the disease that swept the country between May and July, Seoul's health ministry said.

He was later said to be cured of the disease but had been battling an acute lung ailment that was a complication resulting from the virus.

Seoul had declared the outbreak effectively over at the end of July, but earlier this month a 35-year-old man believed to have been cured of the virus was rediagnosed.

The diagnosis dealt a blow to South Korea's hopes of being declared free of the disease.

comment: it would appear we are going to have to re-evaluate people who have been cleared of diseases i.e. Ebola as well as MERS. Cases can and do go on for months and the question is whether people carrying the disease with no symptoms can still infect others.

Medclinician

Albert wrote: Remember, in the initial outbreak in S. Korea, they originally tried to cover it up, until it hit around a dozen cases.  I wouldn't rule out that they never fully eradicated it and we're not getting the full story.  Maybe they're jumping on the Ebola relapse band wagon a bit.

There seems to be a pattern here, Albert.  Of course, I am one of the old school people who was told of people still having Swine Flu symptoms and problems for years after they first caught the disease during the Pandemic.  http://www.flu.gov/about_the_flu/h1n1/index.html

The problem is when people are hit with a virus or bacteria and there is a crisis time and then recovery, it may not be over and effect them for a lifetime.  Ten years later after this these
http://www.about-ecoli.com/ecoli_outbreaks/view/jack-in-the-box-e-coli-outbreak/#.Vi0HMJz4ZT4
people had very bad continuing medical problems through the rest of their lives. Often these "bugs" try to set up a symbiotic host situation which can become more parasitic. TB, for instance, can encapsulate in the human lung and be dormant  http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0010030

As you have been tracking disease for years as I have, you know that viruses are getting very sophisticated in how they mutate and recombine to produce some very nasty new resistant strains.

MERS is a Pandemic waiting to happen. What is worse with MERS than the flu is the fatality rate. It is abysmal.  For an in depth look at this virus which in some clusters had a 100% cfr (worse than Ebola) and in many clusters was 50% - look here

http://www.uq.edu.au/vdu/VDUMERSCoronavirus.htm

Also it may be or become airborne. http://www.newsweek.com/deadly-mers-virus-may-be-airborne-study-says-260619

add that to the fact the reason for the really bad outbreak was a superspreader or several
http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2015/06/superspreading-event-triggers-mers-explosion-south-korea

one can see this is one nasty little virus with a lot of potential to become global.

We are in a time where information about cases and deaths from diseases, not just in the U.S., but many countries is heavily suppressed for economic reasons. That means where the classic flu in the U.S. is not reported nor deaths to individuals counted, if we have a Pandemic, we are not going to know about it until it is well past the time to control it.

Just saying - we need to keep tracking MERS, even if many of TPTB (The Powers That Be) may feel there isn't much they could do during a widespread Pandemic but go underground, preserve the current infrastructure, military, and politicians in shelters and leave the rest on the surface to survive the best they can without them.

Medclinician