‘No MERS case in Jeddah’

A Jeddah health official rejected a report that a two-year-old boy in the city has fallen prey to the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS).
This denial from the Director of Health Affairs in Jeddah Dr. Sami Badawood is contrary to the statement issued by the Ministry of Health on Monday on its website that a boy was undergoing treatment for the disease at a hospital in Jeddah.
“If any person is found to have contracted the disease, he will be admitted to the isolation wards found at all hospitals in Jeddah to treat patients with contagious diseases,” a local newspaper reported Badawood as saying.
He said that private hospitals were instructed to refer any patient with MERS to a government hospital.
The disease has killed 32 people out of 49 infected in the Kingdom, according to the statement from the ministry. It said that three new infection cases were reported in Riyadh, Jeddah and the Eastern Province.
Supervisor General of the Regional Laboratory and Blood Banks in Jeddah Dr. Saeed Al-Amoudi said the laboratory did not receive blood samples of any two-year-old child affected by the virus. “None of the samples of suspected cases sent to the laboratory from government and private hospitals tested positive for MERS,” he said.
He added that the laboratory received between four to 15 blood samples sent from different parts of the Kingdom daily. “It takes eight hours to test a sample, while including routine formalities it could take up to 16 hours,” he said.
Examining doctors refer patients for blood tests if they suspect they are infected.