New Coronavirus Could Infect Millions during Hajj in Saudi Arabia

Saudi take steps to thwart epidemic at hajj: report

RIYADH, Oct 1, 2012 -Saudi Arabia has taken measures to deal with any epidemic that may break out during the annual hajj pilgrimage,
a minister said in remarks published Monday, stressing that the spread of a mystery illness from the same family as the deadly SARS virus was “limited.”

The kingdom has taken “preventive measures towards pilgrims … and has made practical and scientific arrangements to deal with any epidemic that might be discovered,”
Health Minister Abdullah al-Rabeeah was quoted as saying in Al-Hayat daily.

Pilgrims in their thousands have begun arriving in the kingdom for this month’s hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam which must be performed at least once in a lifetime by all Muslims who are able to do so.

The Geneva-based World Health Organisation (WHO) has identified a virus which caused the death of a Saudi national as being of the coronavirus family.

It has also left a Qatari man seriously ill in a London hospital after he was transferred there from Doha earlier last month, the WHO said, adding that he had previously been in Saudi Arabia.

Read more here:

[link to dawn.com]

[link to www.youtube.com]

World Health Organization

Health conditions for travellers to Saudi Arabia
for the pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj)

[link to www.who.int]

WHO Urges Docs To Be on Alert for New SARS-Like Virus

The World Health Organization urged health workers to be aware of patients with an acute respiratory infection related to SARS.
The new coronavirus was found in a critically ill Qatari man who was being treated in London as well as in a Saudi Arabian man who died months earlier.
Unlike SARS, the new virus also causes kidney failure.

Global health officials have alerted doctors to be on the lookout for a virus related to SARS but said there were no signs the disease was behaving
like the respiratory syndrome that killed hundreds in 2003.

The World Health Organization announced this week that a new coronavirus had been found in a critically ill Qatari man who was being treated in London
as well as in a Saudi Arabian man who died several months earlier. Genetic sequencing found the viruses in the two men to be nearly identical.

The two men might have been infected directly by animals, however, and there was no proof of human-to-human spread of the virus, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said Thursday.

"This is not SARS, it is a new virus and very distinct from SARS," he said. "There are still a lot of unanswered questions, so we cannot predict what might happen."

Read more here:

[link to www.sci-tech-today.com]

What is the public health risk associated with the detection of a novel coronavirus in two patients with a common travel history to Saudi Arabia?

Check it out here:
[link to ecdc.europa.eu]

But it's just a cold

Probably from bats.
Connect to the Dark Knight Rises.

Saudi Arabia is denying Iranians Haaj visas:

Hajj SARS And Denial of Iranian Hajj Visas Linked [WAC]

[link to www.youtube.com]

SARS-Like Virus May Come From Bats

The SARS-like virus that's caught the attention of health care workers worldwide appears to be related to a virus that infects bats in Southeast Asia.

"Bats harbor many coronaviruses, so it's logical to assume that bats are the natural reservoir" of the new virus, Ron Fouchier, who led the sequencing work, told National Public Radio.

Read more here:
[link to news.discovery.com]

Toronto-area hajj pilgrims warned to get vaccinated

TORONTO - Thousands of Toronto-area Muslims are being warned to get vaccinated for meningococcal disease before leaving next week for the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

Notices have been posted in GTA hospitals notifying patients who’ve returned from Saudi Arabia or Qatar to see their doctor due to concerns over a new coronavirus, a SARS-like virus that has so far killed one.

A Travel Health Notice was issued Sept. 26 by Public Health Agency of Canada to notify Muslims of the vaccinations before they begin leaving for the Oct. 24-29 pilgrimage to be attended by millions of worshippers.

Read more here:

[link to www.torontosun.com]

[link to wwwnc.cdc.gov]

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I saw an article a couple of days ago that mentioned a new coronavirus case, here is one from today:

New coronavirus case in Britain brings worldwide total to 12; WHO urges vigilance on SARS-like disease

The latest coronavirus patient is a relative of the two other Britons diagnosed with the virus last week, officials said.
The first of the family to contract the SARS-like disease had recently traveled to the Middle East.

Read more:
[link to www.nydailynews.com]

Beta Coronavirus Hajj Testing Concerns
Recombinomics Commentary 08:00

February 17, 2013

A cohort of 154 French Hajj pilgrims participating in the 2012 Hajj were systematically sampled using nasal swab prior
to returning to France and screened for the novel HCoV-EMC coronavirus by two real-time RT-PCR assays. Despite a high
rate of respiratory symptoms (83.4%) including 41.0% influenza like illness, no case of HCoV-EMC infection was detected.

The above comments from the abstract of a recent paper entitled “Lack of nasal carriage of novel coronavirus (HCoV-EMC)
in French Hajj pilgrims returning from the Hajj 2012, despite high rate of respiratory symptoms” raise serious concerns that
novel betacornavirus cases associated with Hajj pilgrims are being missed because screening has focused on samples collected
from the upper respiratory tract, when WHO recommends testing of samples collected from the lower respiratory tract.

Read more here:
[link to www.recombinomics.com]

Britain reports novel coronavirus family cluster

A male family member of a British man hospitalized with a novel coronavirus (CoV) infection has also been hospitalized with the same virus, pointing to another instance of human-to-human spread, UK and international health authorities reported today.

The newly confirmed CoV case is in a UK resident who is being treated in an intensive care unit at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, the country's Health Protection Agency (HPA) said today in a statement. The patient has a preexisting medical condition that increases susceptibility to respiratory infections. The case raises the world's number of confirmed CoV cases to 11, including 5 deaths.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said today that the patient is a male family contact who was hospitalized on Feb 9 after a short history of respiratory symptoms.

An earlier case from the same family was hospitalized in Manchester on Jan 31 with a severe lower respiratory tract infection, and tests revealed that he was co-infected with CoV and the 2009 H1N1 (pH1N10 influenza virus, according to previous reports. The 60-year-old man started having symptoms 10 days after a trip to Pakistan, then Saudi Arabia.

Read more:
[link to www.cidrap.umn.edu]

Just cause the medical mafia has no cures for SARS doesn't mean there are none.

History repeating

But.....they say this every year

Nope no chance of it spreading there.

Hajj 2020 will begin in the evening of
Tuesday, July 28
and ends in the evening of
Sunday, August 2
Dates may vary.

not the right time of year.