WHO warns corona virus is likely to cause pandemic

In the interim guidelines for influenza outbreaks published on June 10, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of the Middle East-derived corona virus strain (MERS-CoV), similar to the virus causing the syndrome. Acute respiratory infections (SARS) broke out in 2003, killing nearly 800 people, potentially spreading into a pandemic globally.

WHO emphasized that the disease has an "alarm level" equivalent to the two other human infectious strains, H5N1, which appeared a decade ago and H7N9, recently discovered in China last March. .

WHO's Special Advisor on Environment and Health Andrew Harper said the organization "is trying to discover as much as possible about the three viruses."

The temporary guide, expected to be completed by the end of this year, has been simplified relatively much after the previous editions were criticized for being too complicated.

The guide added to the lessons learned after the 2009/2010 H1N1 influenza pandemic, causing tens of thousands of deaths, adding the concept of severity when assessing risks and reducing to four levels of reporting. Dynamic compared to seven levels in previous versions, while also enabling countries to be more flexible when assessing domestic risks.

The WHO assesses the risk of spreading high corona virus due to its ability to move around the world. Causing symptoms of cough, fever and pneumonia, this virus has spread to the UK, France, Germany and Italy. Many cases have been detected in Jordan, Qatar, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.

Due to the above reasons, the WHO recommends: "all countries in the world need to ensure that their health workers are aware of the danger of the virus, the disease it causes and in the school. If pneumonia is unexplained, it is necessary to determine if MERS-CoV infection is needed. "

MERS-CoV was first discovered in Saudi Arabia last year and so far has made 55 people worldwide, of which 31 died. Although the number of infected people is still low, the mortality rate is up to 60%. About 75% of cases in Saudi Arabia are male, most of them have health problems before. So far, the origin of the disease has not been determined.