Posted on 06/06/2013 11:07:50 AM PDT by IbJensen
More than two million Muslims descend on Mecca for the annual Hajj each year. Saudi authorities are advising pilgrims to wear face masks in overcrowded places. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
(CNSNews.com) – As Saudi and U.N. health authorities report new infections from a troubling new respiratory disease, there are concerns that the approaching Hajj – the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca – could increase the risk of spreading the virus as pilgrims return to their home countries.
Meanwhile the U.S. government, in a notice published in the Federal Register Wednesday, declared that the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV, or simply MERS) could potentially “affect national security or the health and security of United States citizens living abroad.”
Saudi Arabia is currently the undisputed center of the scare.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the majority of the 55 confirmed MERS cases – 40 infections, 24 deaths – have occurred in the kingdom, while two deaths each have been reported in Britain and Jordan and one death each in France and the United Arab Emirates. (The fatalities in Europe were linked to visits to the Middle East.)
Infections also have been reported in Qatar, Tunisia and Italy.
The notice published in the Federal Register Wednesday said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has determined that “there is a significant potential for a public health emergency that has a significant potential to affect national security or the health and security of United States citizens living abroad.”
That determination in turn allows the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to bypass standard processes and fast-track approval for products or drugs in relation to MERS, on the basis of an “emergency use application” (EUA).
The FDA may under the prescribed circumstances issue an EUA “authorizing (1) the emergency use of an unapproved drug, an unapproved or uncleared device, or an unlicensed biological product; or (2) an unapproved use of an approved drug, approved or cleared device, or licensed biological product,” the notice says.
Saudi Arabia says more than two million Muslims – including roughly 20,000 from the United States – visit Mecca for the Hajj, which brings large numbers of people into close proximity in a confined geographical area over a five-day period. This year’s pilgrimage falls in mid-October.
As of Wednesday, the U.N. World Health Organization (WHO) said it was not advising any “special screening at points of entry” as a result of the outbreak, “nor does it currently recommend the application of any travel or trade restrictions.”
Updated guidelines for Hajj pilgrims, issued by the Saudi Embassy in Washington, make no mention of MERS in a section on health issues and vaccination requirements. Vaccinations that are required for adults include those for meningitis, seasonal flu, and the H1N1 flu virus.
The guidelines do include an unspecific warning: “Health experts advise the following groups to postpone their plans for Hajj and Umrah this year for their own safety: The elderly, the terminally ill, pregnant women, and children.” (The Umrah is a secondary type of pilgrimage to Mecca, one that can be taken any time of the year.)
In its health guidelines related to MERS, the Saudi health ministry has one reference to the pilgrimage, advising the wearing of face masks “in the overcrowded places during Hajj or Umrah.”
A Malaysian study published in the Journal of Travel Medicine in 2010 found that more than 60 percent of Malaysian pilgrims developed respiratory systems, including coughs, sore throats and fever, during the 2007 Hajj.
A French study, published in the same journal and examining French pilgrims at the 2009 Hajj, found that although almost 80 percent reported having worn face masks, their use “did not significantly reduce respiratory symptoms.”
The most recent fatality reported to WHO by Saudi health authorities is that of a 14 year-old girl. It was noted that she is not from an area in the east of the kingdom called Al-Ahsa, where a cluster of cases at one hospital since April accounted for 22 infections and 10 deaths.
According to the CDC, there have been no reports of anyone in the U.S. becoming infected with the virus, whose symptoms can include cause coughing, fever and pneumonia.
‘Alarming’
Much about the virus is unknown, including its origin (bats are a suspected host), how infections are occurring, the conditions under which it could spread from one person to another, and chances of mutation into a more easily-transmissible form.
Experts say it is distinct from, but similar to, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which was blamed for 774 deaths between late 2002 and mid-2003, more than 80 percent of them in mainland China and Hong Kong.
“Although the number of cases documented is limited, the morbidity and mortality of the infection is alarming, as is its uncanny resemblance – at least in its clinical features – to SARS,” the Coronavirus Study Group (CSG) of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses said in a report in May, at a time when the number of confirmed MERS infections stood at 30.
“While a small minority of the known cases developed mild disease, most patients presented with a severe acute respiratory condition requiring hospitalization; the mortality rate is approximately 60 percent,” the CSG said. (The mortality rate currently is about 55 percent).
While WHO has not issued travel or screening advisories, it is encouraging vigilance, saying travelers returning from the Middle East who develop severe acute respiratory infections should be tested for MERS.
WHO is also advising clinicians that in patients whose immunity is compromised, MERS infection should be considered, even in cases of atypical symptoms, such as diarrhea.
Foreigners are a threat to our national health and security so who is stopping these sick people from coming to America, both legally and illegally? Answer, no one. We just loves muslims, right obama? There was a time if even a hint of illness was in a legal immigrant candidate, they were shipped back from whence they came. Of course if a nation was to do that who would take in all of the disease infected third worlders?
Obama may have to get the crop dusters involved.
Let their god save them...
Trial balloon. Threat of a deadly virus epidemic used to justify martial law. Zero is testing the waters.
Virus epidemic. Yawn. Just the latest rabbit for them to chase.
Perhaps the U.N. needs to quarantine the location (yeah, sure).
Great, we will have Sebelius, Napolitano, Rice and Kerry on the case.
Golly, I do hope Ntl Security Advisor Susan Rice got her shots (cackle).
Did she go to Mecca too? Obama was probably there in disguise.
Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
” Golly, I do hope Ntl Security Advisor Susan Rice got her shots (cackle). “
Make it into a video, and put it on You Tube.
Great idea-—LOL.
Issue no visas?
Wonder if McCain is back yet? Not sure if the bug was in his area, but he was in the ME schmoozing—maybe he schmoozed with an infected picture taking local??- he could have brought the bug home to DC with him...ya never know-
The Lord works in mysterious ways....
Next up: Locusts!
Didn’t they just approve Saudi flights to numerous airports around the country?
of course it’s a national security issue. It always is.
The WHO says that they don’t know the host animal acting as a reservoir for the virus but I suspect that it is harbored in goat vaginas.
That’s the place where they worship a ROCK. We have a living God and they worship a rock.
__________________________________________
They can worship a stone if they want to. I just dont want them stoning me with it...
Pam Geller, Manchester, TN June 4, 2013
Remember back four years ago with that "swine flu epidemic". Rather than keeping people from entering the US from Mexico (its source) the feds got panicky about giving everyone a vaccination and quarantining anyone who might spread the dread disease, even though in most cases most of us sucked into the quarantine didn't have the disease and would be better off at home. In that quarantine, it sure did feel like a trial run about how a quarantine would work. (even when it was determined I had something else, I couldn't get out!....twelve days of hell).
I really believe that if the US population gets to disagreeable and too involved in protesting this summer, we'll all find out there's a monster disease on the loose, and we all have to stay home so it won't spread.
Conspiracy theory? Well, sure. Do I think it could happen that way....yes.
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