Category Archives: Near East/Europe

UK: Novel coronavirus infection update, another confirmed case

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The United King­dom (UK) has informed WHO of another con­firmed case of infec­tion with the novel coro­n­avirus (NCoV). The patient is a UK res­i­dent and a rel­a­tive of the case announced on 11 Feb­ru­ary 2013. The lat­est con­firmed case does not have any recent travel his­tory out­side the UK and is cur­rently hos­pi­tal­ized in an inten­sive care unit. It is under­stood that this patient has pre-existing med­ical con­di­tions that may have increased sus­cep­ti­bil­ity to res­pi­ra­tory infections.

Con­firmed NCoV in a per­son with­out recent travel his­tory indi­cates that infec­tion was acquired in the UK. As of 13 Feb­ru­ary 2013, evi­dence of person-to-person trans­mis­sion has been lim­ited. Although this case is sug­ges­tive of person-to-person trans­mis­sion, on the basis of cur­rent evi­dence, the risk of sus­tained person-to-person trans­mis­sion appears to be very low. The Health Pro­tec­tion Agency (HPA) is fol­low­ing up on all close con­tacts (fam­ily and health­care work­ers) who may have been exposed to either of these two new con­firmed cases.

As of 13 Feb­ru­ary 2013, a total of 11 con­firmed cases of human infec­tion with NCoV have been noti­fied to WHO, with no change in the num­ber of fatal­i­ties i.e., five deaths since April 2012.

Based on the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion and avail­able infor­ma­tion, WHO encour­ages all Mem­ber States to con­tinue their sur­veil­lance for severe acute res­pi­ra­tory infec­tions (SARI) and to care­fully review any unusual pat­terns. Test­ing for the new coro­n­avirus should be con­sid­ered in patients with unex­plained pneu­mo­nias, or in patients with unex­plained severe, pro­gres­sive or com­pli­cated res­pi­ra­tory ill­ness not respond­ing to treat­ment. Any clus­ters of SARI or SARI in health­care work­ers should be thor­oughly inves­ti­gated, regard­less of where in the world they occur. New cases and clus­ters of the NCoV should be reported promptly both to national health author­i­ties and to WHO. WHO does not advise spe­cial screen­ing at points of entry with regard to this event nor does it rec­om­mend that any travel or trade restric­tions be applied. WHO con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor closely the sit­u­a­tion.
(WHO 2/13/2013)

Egypt: Importation of wild poliovirus detected in environmental (sewage) samples

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Wild poliovirus has been found in sam­ples taken from sewage in Al Hag­gana (Nasr City) and Al Salam dis­trict in Cairo. The wild poliovirus is related to the wild poliovirus type 1, from north Sindh, Pak­istan, which was reported in Sep­tem­ber 2012.

This is the first doc­u­mented impor­ta­tion of wild poliovirus from Pak­istan, after Egypt was declared polio free, with its last case in May 2004. At this stage, there are no cases (chil­dren) of paral­y­sis asso­ci­ated with this importation.

These poliovirus strains have been detected through ongo­ing envi­ron­men­tal sur­veil­lance in Egypt, which involves reg­u­lar test­ing of sewage water from mul­ti­ple sites (total in the coun­try 34, in Cairo 5).

Emer­gency response and coor­di­na­tion efforts are ongo­ing between the Min­istry of Health and Pop­u­la­tion, the Gov­ern­ment of Egypt and the Global Polio Erad­i­ca­tion Ini­tia­tive part­ners, WHO and UNICEF. Teams have been sent to each of the areas in which the virus was detected in envi­ron­men­tal sam­pling and a field inves­ti­ga­tion and active search for cases is ongo­ing. The fre­quency of envi­ron­men­tal sam­pling has been increased; envi­ron­men­tal sam­ples will be col­lected fort­nightly instead of monthly from the five sites located in Cairo.

Sup­ple­men­tary immu­niza­tion activ­i­ties are being planned for a large-scale Cairo-wide cam­paign for chil­dren under 5 years of age, tar­get­ing approx­i­mately 3 mil­lion chil­dren. The cam­paign is planned dur­ing the com­ing month; dates have not yet been final­ized. Imme­di­ate response vac­ci­na­tion in these two areas has been strongly rec­om­mended to the Min­istry of Health and Population.

Mean­while, in a joint state­ment, WHO, UNICEF and the Polio Mon­i­tor­ing Cell in Pak­istan have announced this sit­u­a­tion as crit­i­cal and alarm­ing for the polio pro­gramme in Pak­istan. The state­ment fur­ther adds that chil­dren under the age of five depart­ing Pak­istan will be given polio drops at spe­cial coun­ters at the air­ports.
(WHO 1/18/2013)

Europe: WHO warns of rising drug-resistant tuberculosis

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Cases of multidrug-resistant (MDR-TB) and exten­sively drug-resistant tuber­cu­lo­sis (XDR-TB) are ris­ing in Europe as the treat­ment suc­cess rate for TB is slip­ping, the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) said 28 June 2012 as man­agers of national TB pro­grams opened a meet­ing in Lon­don. The WHO’s Regional Office for Europe esti­mated that 81,000 peo­ple fall ill with MDR-TB in the region each year, but because of lim­ited access to care, only 29,000 cases were diag­nosed in 2010. Not­ing that treat­ment for resis­tant TB is lengthy, com­pli­cated, and costly, the WHO said treat­ment suc­cess rates for new and pre­vi­ously treated TB cases fell from 72% and 50%, respec­tively, in 2005 to 69% and 48% in 2010. The state­ment quoted a Roman­ian man who described how, while being treated for XDR-TB, he wasn’t allowed to work, but he had to return work to keep his fam­ily from starv­ing. He died in May 2012. Fol­low­ing adop­tion of a regional action plan in 2011, many Euro­pean Region coun­tries have increased access to treat­ment for resis­tant TB, but many patients still go undi­ag­nosed or untreated, the WHO said.

The WHO state­ment may be accessed at http://www.euro.who.int/en/what-we-do/health-topics/communicable-diseases/tuberculosis/news/news/2012/6/tackling-tuberculosis-means-looking-beyond-the-disease-experts-meet-to-address-its-broader-causes2
(CIDRAP 7/2/2012)