French health officials are working to trace all the contacts of two men who contracted Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), a potentially deadly disease that typically only occurs in the Middle East.
These cases of the disease are the country’s first in 12 years, according to the French health ministry. The men, both of whom are in their 70s, are in a stable condition. About four in every 10 people who have a MERS infection die of the illness, and there is no cure or vaccine.
Officials have begun deploying strategies to contain the disease, including tracing known human contacts, performing testing and applying isolation. They have also issued instructions on what to do if symptoms occur. The MERS-causing coronavirus MERS-CoV, which belongs to the same family as the pathogen that causes COVID, can bring about severe respiratory problems, including cough, breathlessness and fever.
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Most cases of MERS-CoV happen when humans encounter infected camels—a known reservoir of the virus—or if they ingest milk or meat from infected animals. But human-to-human transmission can occur. According to French health officials, the infected men in France had recently traveled to Oman, where they had eaten camel meat and visited a live-animal market.