The Philippines confirmed a second case of the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) corona virus yesterday in a man who showed symptoms after arriving in Manila last month from Dubai.
The 36-year-old was admitted to hospital on Saturday and was under observation, Health Ministry spokesman Lyndon Lee-suy said, adding contact tracing was already under way to prevent the spread of the disease in other areas.
The man had also travelled to Saudi Arabia, the spokesman said. However, his condition seemed to be improving and there had been no known transmission of the disease so far.
The first case discovered in the Philippines was in January, involving a Filipino nurse working in Saudi Arabia who survived.
World Health Organisation describes outbreak as ‘wake-up call’ but says that at the moment it does not constitute a global emergency
First identified in humans in 2012, MERS is caused by a corona virus from the same family as the one that triggered the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
At present there is no known cure or vaccine for the disease which can be deadly.
The virus was first identified in humans in Saudi Arabia and the majority of cases have been discovered in the Middle East.
Scientists are not sure about the origin of the virus, but several studies have linked it to camels.
Isolated cases cropped up in Asia before an outbreak erupted in South Korea in May and became the largest outside of Saudi Arabia.
A total of 186 people have been infected in South Korea, and 33 have died.
On a positive note the country’s health authorities said yesterday that the outbreak may have turned the corner, with only four new cases reported in the past week.
In fact. even in the Thai capital Bangkok, more than a hundred people were believed to have been in contact with an Omani man, the only MERS case in Thailand who eventually recovered.
The World Health Organisation described South Korea’s outbreak as a “wake-up call” but said that at the moment it did not constitute a global emergency.