- Title: HEALTH-MERS/GERMANY German man dies of complications stemming from MERS
- Date: 16th June 2015
- Summary: OSNABRUECK, GERMANY (JUNE 16, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS EXTERIORS OF THE MARIEN HOSPITAL WHERE THE MAN WAS FIRST TREATED FOR MERS HEAD VIROLOGIST AT THE MARIEN HOSPITAL, DR. REINOLD GROSS IN OFFICE LOOKING THROUGH FILING CABINETS (SOUNDBITE) (German) HEAD VIROLOGIST AT THE MARIEN HOSPITAL, DR. REINOLD GROSS, SAYING: "The patient had a very serious virus, the MERS coronavirus
- Embargoed: 1st July 2015 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Germany
- Country: Germany
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA60XA084GTJ0OSDTAU2GNRK9P2
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: A 65-year-old German man who was infected with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus earlier this year has died in hospital, the health ministry of the German state of Lower Saxony said on Tuesday (June 16).
The man died in the town of Ostercappeln, north-west Germany on June 6 from complications stemming from the virus, the ministry said in a statement.
It is the first German death from the MERS virus, which emerged in the Middle East in 2012 and is from the same family as the SARS virus. It can cause coughing, fever and pneumonia.
The man is believed to have been infected with the virus while visiting an animal market on the Arabian Peninsula in February, the ministry said.
The patient was initially treated at the Marien Hospital in the western German city of Osnabrueck, where Dr. Reinold Gross is the head virologist.
"The patient had a very serious virus, the MERS coronavirus. This virus destroys lots of pulmonary tissue and at the end of the day when the infection passes, when the virus is no longer detectable, then the tissue is very badly damaged and very often there are secondary complications as a result," Gross told Reuters TV.
He said there were no indications he had infected others, with the local health ministry saying it had tested 200 people and found them all negative for the virus.
"Everyone who was in contact with the patient - including the family, and people who were involved in the medical care - no one was infected," Gross said.
"Transmission from person to person only happens if someone who is seriously infected with the virus, coughed up a lot of the virus and at that point if there is close contact to other people. The virus is very dangerous when the infection has been triggered, but the chance of transmission is small," he added.
The virus has infected over 150 people in South Korea and killed 19 of them since it was first diagnosed on May 20 in a businessman who had returned from a trip to the Middle East.
Gross said the appropriate measures were not taken at the time in South Korea to stop the disease from spreading.
"In South Korea, where at the moment many people have become infected, the isolation measures at the beginning did not work. The patient lay in a room with many other patients including some who already had other illnesses, so people whose immune systems were weakened and so the illness was able to spread more quickly then," he said.
The outbreak in South Korea is the largest outside Saudi Arabia, where the disease was first identified in humans in 2012, and has stirred fears in Asia of a repeat of a 2002-2003 scare when Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) killed about 800 people worldwide.
MERS is caused by a corona virus from the same family as the one that caused SARS. It is more deadly than SARS but does not spread as easily. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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