Virus expert says MERS infection prevention, control has “broken down” in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabian health authorities are failing to proactively contain the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), leading to increased fears of a global outbreak similar to SARS five years ago, an Australian virologist has claimed. Fears are rising of an uncontainable outbreak of the deadly virus following two more deaths in Saudi Arabia and the discovery of an infected passenger on board an Etihad flight to the Philippines. More than 20 people, many of them health-care workers, have been reported infected with MERS in Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the past week, while the disease also has spread to Asia for the first time, with the death of a Malaysian man after he returned from a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia on March 29. All passengers and crew on board a flight from Abu Dhabi to Manila last week were urged to be tested for MERS after a passenger was diagnosed with the deadly...