World Health Organization: MERS Isn't an Emergency

By Maria Cheng May 14, 2014 12:13PM After a meeting of the World Health Organization's expert group on the Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, it was decided that the virus is not a global health emergency. Some scientists said while MERS technically meets the criteria for a global health emergency, declaring it as such could confuse the public...

..."Calling a global emergency in a world which has a lot of urgent issues going on is a major act," said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, an assistant director-general of WHO, told reporters Wednesday. "You have to have really solid information to say this is a global emergency." Fukuda said there wasn't yet proof of the virus' sustained transmission among people... ..Some scientists said while MERS technically meets the criteria for a global health emergency, declaring it as such could confuse the public. "People might think (WHO) is crying wolf because MERS is still primarily a problem in the Middle East," said Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Minnesota who has worked in the Middle East. "But if one of those infected people gets on a plane and lands in London, Toronto, New York or Hong Kong and transmits to another 30 people, everyone will have a different view." On Wednesday, the Netherlands' National Institute for Public Health and the Environment announced its first case of MERS, a man who became infected during a visit to Saudi Arabia. He is now in isolation at a hospital in The Hague...   http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=100002488JPO