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STORY: WHO / MERS
TRT: 2.13
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /NATS
DATELINE: 14 MAY 2014, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, press room
2. SOUNDBITE (English), Dr Keiji Fukuda, Assistant Director-General, WHO Health Security:
“After a quite lengthy discussion, in which they looked at all of the available facts, the different considerations, and the different perspectives, what they reached was a consensus, that the situation had increased in seriousness and their concern about the situation had also increased in terms of urgency. However, when they looked at all of the information they felt that the situation still felt short of calling it a public health emergency of international concern.”
3. Cutaway, laptop
4. SOUNDBITE (English), Dr Keiji Fukuda, Assistant Director-General, WHO Health Security:
“When all the countries were looked at, it is clear right now that we don’t see any evidence of community infection sweeping through. So typically, when we see an influenza season for example, we will see a sharp rise, in many people getting infected so it is clear that you have infection going through communities. We don’t see that.”
5. Cutaway, journalists
6. SOUNDBITE (English), Dr Keiji Fukuda, Assistant Director-General, WHO Health Security:
“The potential for MERS to cause a larger threat is very clear and is noticed by many people and also the possibility that infection control can play a substantial part in reducing that risk is also very clear.”
7. Cutaway, journalist
8. SOUNDBITE (English), Dr Keiji Fukuda, Assistant Director-General, WHO Health Security:
“Perhaps most importantly again, they iterated the need to take several actions, and these are the ones that I mentioned earlier, but let me stress them again. One of them is a need to immediately strengthen infection prevention and control practices everywhere, everywhere. But again, emphasizing the importance of doing them in terms of countries which have active infections going on. So, the affected countries. Two, they stressed the need to urgently initiated and complete key studies.”
9. Pan left, press room
The World Health Organization(WHO) said today (14 May) that the deadly MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus) has “increased in seriousness” but does not yet represent a global public health emergency.
The WHO’s Emergency Committee was convened by teleconference yesterday (May 13) for the fifth time to discus the MERS.
There is no evidence of community infection, as in case with seasonal influenza, said WHO’s Assistant Director-General, Dr Keiji Fukuda. MERS however has a potential to cause a large threat.
The WHO recommended several actions to be taken to prevent further spreading, like strengthening infection prevention and control especially in countries with active infections, as well as urgent studies into relationship between infection in animals and infections in people.
The MERS is caused by a coronavirus MERS-CoV. It symptoms are coughing, fever, shortness of breath and in some cases fatal pneumonia.
It was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012 infecting so far more than 500 people. The virus has spread to neighboring countries and in a few cases, to Europe and Asia. There are two confirmed cases in United States as well. The virus kills about 30 percent of those infected.
