The Independent and Health-Informed Tourist?
By Scinceside – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 An innocuous visit to Dubai A young friend of my extended family was recently taken seriously ill and ended up in a London hospital following a short trip to Dubai to visit a partner working abroad for a few months. The symptoms of the infection, taken together…
Middle Eastern Respiratory Virus Syndrome strikes the UK
The UK has become the latest country to suffer suspected MERS cases: 2 cases in a Manchester hospital forced it to shut its emergency department [July 2015]. In May, similar events in South Korea [Republic of Korea], mishandled through ignorance and poor infection control within several hospitals, caused multiple outbreaks of Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome. This article discusses current research, the Korean outbreak, how it is spread via global travel and within hospitals, and asks where else could MERS strike? What would happen should MERS ever reach a country with a poor health system?