Withheld Mild Jeddah Beta2c Coronavirus Cases

Recombinomics Commentary 04:00
March 26, 2013

Al-Memish, who is also the chairman of the National Scientific Committee for Infectious Diseases, said that only a few people had been found positive in the world.

Symptoms of the virus include runny nose, general feeling of illness, mild sore throat, cough, headache, low fever and chills. It can also cause respiratory, intestinal and neurological illness.

The official said most of those infected recover completely with no complications after receiving the required supportive therapy.

The above comments are in response to the most recent nCoV case in Riyadh, who was a contact of the recent fatal case (39M) and his infection was characterized as mild.  In addition the English language report cited above, local comments, which were widely reported, also noted that most of the milder cases were in Jeddah.
 
To date there is only one reported confirmed nCoV case linked to Jeddah, The first confirmed case (60M), who died in July, 2012.  Two other cases (the second confirmed case, 49M from Qatar who has been hospitalized in the UK for 6 months, and the index case (60M) for the UK cluster, who has also died) have also been reported and all are severe or fatal.  Thus, the mild cases described above, and in local media reports, have not been disclosed by WHO.
Since these cases are due to a novel coronavirus (nCoV), they are reportable under IHR, and Saudi Arabia has cited IHR reporting for the earlier confirmed cases, suggesting the WHO is withholding the information on the mild cases.  In the absence of the reports on these cases, WHO continues to claim that there has been no sustained transmission, even though sequences from five confirmed cases have been virtually identical (99.8% - 99.9% identity with the consensus sequence).  The claim that the confirmed cases are “spontaneous” although they recently added “seemingly” as a qualifier, and have been badgering media to call nCoV a cold virus and not note that it is SARS-like, when in fact the confirmed cases are SARS like with a case fatality rate of 66.7%.
The withholding of the information on these mild cases raises serious pandemic concerns, and WHO’s silence on these cases is hazardous to the world’s health.