Word limit: 2000 words (excluding references) Marks: 50 Task The Department of Health has commissioned you to write a report on an emerging infectious disease of concern to Australia (choose ONE...

MIDDLE EAST RESPIRATORY SYNDROME
“ An overview on the occu
ence of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), its concern among the Australian population for developing policies and response plans ”
1. BACKGROUND :
1.1. Overview of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) :
The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is a zoonotic human viral pathogen which was endemic to the Middle East region. This disease is actually caused by the MERS- Corona virus (MERS-CoV) (E.I. Azhar, et al. 2019). The identification of this virus was done in 2012, when the lung sample of a 60 year old patient who died due to respiratory failure was checked in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (A. Bleibtreu, et al. 2019). It has a strong association with the high mortality rates and severe disease, which is also recu
ent nosocomial and community out
eaks, due to which it is always on the global public health authority’s radar. Hence it also is present on the World Health Organization (WHO) Blueprint list of the priority pathogens as it has always been a global threat to health security (WHO 2016, WHO 2018).
1.2. Cu
ent distribution of MERS & the factors that contribute to its re- emergence :
After the first case of MERS was identified, its spread to the neighboring countries were noticed significantly. This then lead to the stage when imported cases of MERS were reported throughout the world circling the main continents such as Asia, Africa, Europe as well as the Americas (A. Bleibtreu, et al. 2019).
According to the World health Organization, the world statistics as of October 2018 gave a report of 2260 confirmed cases of MERS-CoV infection affecting 27 countries and these also resulted in the death of 803 patients (WHO 2018). Even among these cases, the majority i.e., 73% were reported in Saudi Arabia. Though the initial cases were fewer, later there was a wide spread, which mainly affected the health care professionals who were in direct contact with the infected patients. This created havoc among all, especially in the regions that were severely affected such as Saudi Arabian provinces (A. Bleibtreu, et al. 2019). Being a diseases with high fatality rate of almost 36%, wide researches were performed on it to identify and understand its origin, etiology and the pathophysiology that are crucial to plan the treatment and preventive methods for preventing the increased spread of the novel corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the recent times when it has attacked the world population and a became a global pandemic (Hemida M.G. 2020).
Figure 1. The geographical distribution of the MERS-CoV confirmed cases on a worldwide basis by WHO.
Source: A. Bleibtreu, et al. 2019
The identification of the natural reservoir (or) the root cause of transmission was crucial at the time to stop (or) control the spread. Then the efforts focused on finding the animal species that were responsible for this spread that lead to the identification of beta corona virus linkage C viruses in the bats that are genotypically similar (or) closely related to the MERS-CoV. Few studies also
ought to light the relation of camels with the virus. The phylogenetic analysis performed on the camels revealed a report of existence of 5 distinct corona virus linkages that were seen in the dromedary camels which had a recombinant linkage among them which led to the MERS-CoV epidemic occu
ence in the human community (M.E. Kille
y, et al. 2020).
2. ANALYSIS OF KEY ISSUES :
2.1. Risk factors for the transmission of MERS & identification of population at risk
The people who are at higher risk of contracting MERS are the ones with co-mo
idity conditions. This group includes people presented with :
· Diabetes
· Chronic Lung Disease
· Weakened Immune System
· Kidney failure
The WHO has also advised the normal healthy people who have come in recent contact with the infected people to ne cautious and take self-care by following all the self-hygiene practices (D.S. Hui, et al. 2018).
2.2. Implications of MERS for different groups :
Different groups of people depending on the co-mo
idities that are present, will be at the risk of being infected. The most implications will be seen in the aged people of 45 and above age group who have chronic lung diseases. The group with diabetes and kidney failure are also on the list with risk. The underlying factors (or) the conditions presented by the person decides the implications that can happen in the patient (D.S. Hui, et al. 2018).
2.3. Tools for monitoring MERS :
The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) based are the most prefe
ed diagnostic method for MERS-CoV infection (A. Bleibtreu, et al. 2019). Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) is a diagnostic method used to diagnose the patients with corona virus. It is used rigorously and extensively in molecular biology to amplify a single copy of DNA to obtain millions of copies. In Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction complementary DNA (cDNA) is made by reverse transcribing the RNA templates with the enzyme reverse transcriptase. It is used quantitatively to study gene expression and can be combined to quantify the levels of RNA. By this technique many of the patients could be diagnosed with MERS-CoV, but there are some...