A deadly new virus emerging in the Middle East incubates for up to two weeks before victims suffer symptoms, doctors warned today.
The virus gained a name for the first time yesterday just days after the head of the World Health Organisation, Dr Margaret Chan, named it as the biggest health threat facing the world.
It is now called MERS-CoV, standing for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus. It has so far been found in 49 cases, including 27 deaths.
In Saudi Arabia one hospital has suffered a major outbreak of infection.
French doctors studied its incubation period after a patient contracted the virus after sharing a hospital room with another victim, who later died.
Writing in The Lancet, Professor Benoit Guery, from Hopital Calmette, Lille, say this suggests the virus spent nine to 12 days incubating in the second patient.
A World Health Organisation spokesman said: "Recent travellers returning from the Middle East who develop sudden acute respiratory infection should be tested for MERS-CoV as advised in the current surveillance recommendations.
"Specimens from patients’ lower respiratory tracts should be obtained for diagnosis where possible. Clinicians are reminded that MERS-CoV infection should be considered even with atypical signs and symptoms, such as diarrhoea, in patients who are immunocompromised.
"Health care facilities are reminded of the importance of systematic implementation of infection prevention and control. Health care facilities that provide care for patients suspected or confirmed with MERS-CoV infection should take appropriate measures to decrease the risk of transmission of the virus to other patients, health care workers and visitors."
Lancet 30 May 2013
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