Saudi Arabia, the country which has witnessed the most Middle East Respiratory Syndrome cases has issued an advisory. The health officials of Saudi Arabia have claimed that there is a high possibility of camels being the carrier of MERS.
Hence the Agriculture Ministry officials have advised to the people who handle camels to wear gloves and masks. Although there is no guarantee that wearing the masks and gloves will prevent the transmission of virus given the size of the camel’s lungs, it will cut down the risk to huge extent.
SPA statement says, “It is advisable to wear protective gloves, especially when dealing with births or sick or dead (camels).”
mers saudi arabia
The officials have also advised people, to avoid unnecessary contact with the camels. They have also advised to eat only well cooked camel meat. However there are reports that the consumption of camel meat has already came down to very huge extent, particularly in the metropolitan cities.
MERS virus was first diagnosed in China in the year 2002. However during recent times the cases are on a high since its appearance in Saudi Arabia.
More than 450 cases were already reported in Saudi Arabia. The virus has already claimed 415 life’s in the Saudi Arabia alone, officially. Following this the Saudi Arabian health officials has taken numerous steps to stop the transmission of MERS.
One among those steps was removing the head of Jeddah hospital.
Recently, many cases were reported from two major hospitals of Jeddah which has lead to lot of criticism for failing to spread the viral infection.
World Health Organization (WHO) has said that the sudden spike of MERS cases in two of Jeddah’s leading hospitals was because of failure to take the proper steps to prevent the spread of infection MERS.