Active screening and surveillance in the United Kingdom for Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus in returning travellers and pilgrims from the Middle East: a prospective descriptive study for the period 2013–2015

Abstract

Respiratory tract infections in travellers/pilgrims returning to the UK from the Middle East are mainly due to rhinoviruses, influenza A, and influenza B. Whilst MERS-CoV was not detected in the 202 patients studied, heightened awareness of the possibility of MERS-CoV and continuous proactive surveillance are essential to rapidly identify cases of MERS-CoV and other seasonal respiratory tract viruses such as avian influenza, in patients presenting to hospital. Early identification and isolation may prevent outbreaks in nosocomial settings.

Influenza is more common than Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) among hospitalized adult Saudi patients

“…Similarly, in the United States the 2014-2015 season was predominated by pandemic H1N1 and H3N2 was more common during the 2016-2017 season [34,35].We found that influenza rather than MERS-CoV was more common among the tested patients. The findings are also consistent with other studies among travelers and pilgrims where influenza far exceeded MERS [36][37][38][39][40]. Similarly, in a small study in Saudi Arabia, influenza viruses were detected in 16% of 182 patients [29].…”

MERS‐CoV, influenza and other respiratory viruses among symptomatic pilgrims during 2014 Hajj season

“…Specifically, the several studies from Saudi Arabia, China, France, Egypt, India, Jordan, Ghana, Iran, and the UK have reported higher prevalence of flu (1.3%‐20.7%) among pilgrims compared with other viruses with flu A being more common (0.6%‐13.9%) than flu B (0.8%‐6.8%) . They also showed high rates of hAdvs (0.8%‐23.7%), hRVs (5.9%‐16.8%), non‐MERS hCoVs (0.4%‐12.8%), hPIVs (0.8%‐7.4%), hRSVs (0.2%‐7.4%), and EVs (2.0%) . In contrast, our current study showed flu A as the most predominant virus among symptomatic pilgrims in 2014 Hajj (27.8%) followed by non‐MERS hCoVs (25.7%), hRVs (16.5%), flu B (13.4%), EVs (5.2%), hAdvs (5.1%), hRSVs (4.1%), and hPIVs (2.1%).…”

MERS: Progress on the global response, remaining challenges and the way forward

“…Since 2012, event-based surveillance among pilgrims returning from Hajj, Umrah and other religious events in KSA has been conducted by KSA and countries sending pilgrims. While many return reporting respiratory symptoms, no MERS-CoV infections have been identified among returning pilgrims (Muraduzzaman et al, 2018;Barasheed et al, 2014;Atabani et al, 2016;Koul et al, 2017;Annan et al, 2015;Ma et al, 2017;Memish et al, 2014aMemish et al, , 2014bRefaey et al, 2017;Al-Abdallat et al, 2017;Matthew et al, 2015;Alqahtani et al, 2016;Win et al, 2016;Yavarian et al, 2018;Kapoor et al, 2014).…”