A Saudi woman suffering from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is assumed to have been infectious when she flew from Doha to Vienna on Sept. 22, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.
The virus, which causes coughing, fever and sometimes fatal pneumonia, has been reported in more than 800 patients, mainly in Saudi Arabia.
“The Austrian health authorities assume that the patient was infectious prior to and during the international flights. Follow-up with passengers on the flight is ongoing and personal data of the crew on the flight has been communicated to Qatar,” a WHO statement said.
“All of the contacts identified in Austria have been informed about the disease and are being followed up by Austrian health authorities,” it added.
Two of the Saudi patient’s close contacts were hospitalized in Vienna with upper respiratory symptoms but Austria’s Health Ministry said on Thursday they had tested negative for MERS.
A 37-year-old Hong Kong man leading a tour group on the flight from Doha had also come into close contact with the patient, but had not shown any symptoms of MERS, said the Hong Kong government.
The man and the 42 members of his group were currently in Poland and would be monitored when they returned to Hong Kong on Oct. 4, the government added.
Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection was contacting Polish health authorities to follow up on the man’s case, it said.
The 29-year-old patient had originally traveled by car from Afif in Saudi Arabia, via Riyadh, and had an upper respiratory infection and fever before she arrived in Austria.
She sought medical treatment in Austria on Sept. 24 and was transferred to a private hospital on Sept. 26, then on Sept. 28 to a hospital specializing in highly infectious diseases, where she is in a stable condition.
At least 301 MERS-related deaths have been reported to WHO out of 853 laboratory-confirmed cases since the disease emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012. But the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control says 352 deaths have been reported to public health authorities worldwide, out of 887 confirmed cases.
A WHO Emergency Committee said on Wednesday that global defenses against MERS needed to be strengthened, especially in Africa, before a likely seasonal resurgence of the disease next spring.
The disease is thought to originate in camels and, aside from travel-related cases, all MERS cases have been confined to the Arabian peninsula, Lebanon, Jordan and Iran.
(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Andrew Heavens)