Filipino nurse from Saudi Arabia tests positive for MERS virus
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A Filipino nurse, who arrived last week from Saudi Arabia, has tested positive for the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), the first case of the deadly virus in the Philippines, the health ministry said on Wednesday.
The World Health Organization is worried about the spread of MERS, a respiratory disease known to have infected at least 965 people, of whom some 357 have died, overwhelmingly in Saudi Arabia.
Lyndon Lee Suy, a spokesman for the Department of Health, said the female nurse was undergoing treatment at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine.
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"The nurse had bouts of fever, body pain, cough and difficulty in breathing - symptoms similar to a patient with MERS-CoV," he told a news conference.
"Testing was done which yielded positive results. The patient is in stable condition."
Lee Suy said health authorities were conducting a contact tracing for 225 other passengers on board Saudi Airlines Flight 860. Her husband, who also arrived on the same flight on Feb. 1, tested negative.
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First reported in 2012 in Saudi Arabia, about 30 percent of people confirmed to have caught the viral respiratory illness MERS-CoV have died.
Nine countries in the Middle East have had confirmed cases while 13 other states, now including the Philippines, have had travel-associated cases, or cases that they have diagnosed but which originated overseas.