Monday, July 8, 2013

WHO to decide whether MERS is global health emergency

08 July 2013 by Debora MacKenzie

The World Health Organization will convene an emergency teleconference of global disease experts tomorrow to decide whether MERS, the Middle Eastern coronavirus that has killed 44 people – including one person in the UK last week – should be declared a public health emergency. Such a declaration would put governments on heightened alert for the virus, just as many prepare to go on a Ramadan pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, home of most MERS cases so far.

This is the second time this emergency procedure, set up under the WHO's International Health Regulations which took effect in 2007, has been invoked. The first occasion was to declare the swine flu pandemic of 2009.

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