Camel flu: characteristics and symptoms of the virus that is causing discussion during the World Cup in Qatar

There are no specific alarms. However, some international authorities have recommended utmost caution to their fellow citizens of return from Qatar and from other areas of the Middle East. Let’s talk about the Mers, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome caused by a coronavirus, Mers-Cov, improperly called camel flu. Nothing new: we’ve known her for at least ten yearsthe virus was identified in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 2015 there was a major outbreak in South Korea. Officially, as of April 2012, we count 2,600 cases and 894 dead reported from 27 countries. It is transmitted from dromedary to man while man-man transmission is unlikely and generally due to the assimilation of raw camel milk and not touching the animal. Fortunately, it is not very contagious but very lethal: kills about 35% of those who develop it, an extremely higher rate than for other flu-like illnesses. This is why attention is never too much, as on many other fronts. Another thing, however, the alarmism circulating in these hours.

For example, that three players of the French national team of football engaged in the World Cup final on Sunday 18 December have been infected with that virus, just because they have a fever, it is not confirmed at all. As usual, the jumble of virologists’ opinions started. For Matthew Bassetti, director of the infectious disease clinic at San Martino in Genoa, for example, «it is a virus that we have known for ten years and has never really managed to leave the Middle East despite the fact that there have been clusters in those who went on pilgrimage to La Mecca. It is a virus that has very low contagiousness, therefore the risk from those who return to Europe is difficult. Those in the trade have known Middle East respiratory syndrome for years, it’s an old problem that I don’t think will come out again” he replied toAdnKronos.

But what symptoms does Mers give?

The typical ones are fever, cough And shortness of breath. Quite common, as indeed with the original strains of Sars-CoV-2, is the onset of pneumonia and in the most serious cases mechanical ventilation may be necessary. Obviously the subjects most at risk, the lowest common denominator for all respiratory viruses, are the elderly and frail or immunocompromised subjects. As explained, human-to-human transmission is very rare: The main channel is direct or indirect contact with infected camels. There are no vaccines, nor specific treatments despite the fact that the virus and the syndrome have been well known for about ten years.

«I consider a minimum alarm threshold plausible with respect to a scenario of contagion from the so-called camel virus, not neglecting to remember that Mers is a serious but already known respiratory syndrome. Net of any regrettable psychosis, it must be said that Mers is the bad sister of Covid with much higher death risk percentages however, from the available scientific literature, turns out to be much less contagiouswith some doubts related to the direct passage from man to man, which would make a strategic difference,” he explained Mauro Minelli, responsible for Southern Italy of the Foundation for personalized medicine. «After all, Mers, which so worries sportsmen returning from the deserts of Qatar for the World Cup, has proven to be formidable but has never reached pandemic dimensions, and this is a precedent to be taken into account and on which the researchers could focus to understand the level of potential alarm.

The scientific community’s first alert on the subject came from an opinion published in the journal The Lancet Global Health in which a group of experts from various international institutes had underlined the need to raise the attention threshold precisely because of the World Cup and another event taking place in the Persian Gulf country, the camel beauty contest of the Camel Mzayen Club, which gathered hundreds of thousands of people. Then the warnings of some health authorities, from the British to the Australian Ministry of Health.

Australian influence: what’s so special about it?

The appeal of pediatricians to parents: “Vaccinate children against the flu”. Here because