{"id":1491,"date":"2014-05-14T13:36:11","date_gmt":"2014-05-14T18:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=1491"},"modified":"2014-05-14T13:58:11","modified_gmt":"2014-05-14T18:58:11","slug":"second-u-s-case-of-mers-experts-available","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/second-u-s-case-of-mers-experts-available\/","title":{"rendered":"Second U.S. case of MERS | Experts Available"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Second U.S. case of MERS | SMCC Experts<\/span> Available<\/span> | May 14, 2014<\/span><\/p>\n

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On Monday May 12, 2014 the U.S. Centres of Disease control reported the \u201cunwelcome but not unexpected\u201d news that a second person in the US has been diagnosed with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. This second case, which occurred in Florida, follows a case reported May 2 in Indiana. Both cases involved people who had recently arrived in the U.S. from Saudi Arabia. On Wednesday, a statement was released<\/a> by the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee of the World Health Organization. It concluded that “the seriousness of the situation had increased in terms of public health impact, but that there is no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission” and that “the conditions for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) have not yet been met.<\/span><\/p>\n

MERS is known to be caused by a coronavirus, in the same family as that which causes Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The virus has been known for more than two years, but there has been a rise in cases in recent weeks; so far around the world there have been 538 lab-confirmed cases of MERS and 145 deaths. Of those, 450 of the cases and 118 of the deaths have been in Saudi Arabia. Fact sheets on MERS are available<\/span> from the Public Health Agency of Canada and can be accessed <\/span>here<\/a> and <\/span>here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Below are some Canadian experts<\/span> who can comment the implications of this finding.<\/p>\n

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If you need further help finding an expert<\/span> on this topic, call us at 514-887-8279 or 613-301-1187.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Allison McGeer<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Director of Infection Control, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. McGeer is an infectious disease epidemiologist whose major areas of research interest are in the prevention of hospital and nursing home acquired infections, adult immunization, influenza, and antibiotic resistance. She has been interviewed extensively about SARS and can talk about the contrasts between that outbreak and MERS.<\/span><\/p>\n

(Dr. McGeer is travelling this week and is available<\/span> only by e-mail Wednesday and Thursday afternoon)<\/em><\/p>\n

Pierre Talbot<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Canada Research Chair in Neuro-Immuno-Virology and director of the Laboratory of Neuroimmunovirology at the Armand-Frappier Institute, INRS<\/span><\/p>\n

Prof. Talbot is an expert<\/span> in coronaviruses, the family of respiratory pathogens that include some forms of the common cold as well as SARS and MERS. He studies the connections between these viruses and diseases of the neurological system such as multiple sclerosis, as well as ways to increase immunity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kamran Kahn<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Infectious disease physician, St. Michael\u2019s Hospital, Toronto<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Khan is an infectious disease specialist and founder of the <\/span>Bio.Diaspora Project<\/a>, a multidisciplinary study of global population mobility via commercial air travel and its role as a conduit for the international spread of infectious diseases with pandemic potential<\/span><\/p>\n

David Fisman<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Division of Epidemiology, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Fisman is an epidemiologist who uses computer models to analyze the spread of infectious diseases, including everything from the flu to MERS. Last fall he published <\/span>a comment article<\/a> in <\/span>The Lancet Infectious Diseases<\/span> discussing estimation of the infectiousness of MERS from reported case numbers.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Guy Boivin<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Canada Research Chair on emerging viruses and antiviral resistance, Universit\u00e9 Laval<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr Boivin is author or co-author of 160 publications and 206 communications at conventions and international symposiums. His research program focuses mainly on the diagnostic, pathogenesis, and treatment of viral infections. He is particularly interested in herpes viruses and respiratory viruses (including avian flu). Dr Boivin uses cellular biology technology as well as animal models to develop rapid DNA-based diagnostic tests, to evaluate new antiviral drugs, and to elucidate the mechanisms of resistance against antiviral drugs. Dr Boivin has coordinated many multi-center studies aimed at evaluating the epidemiology and clinical impact of emerging viruses. He collaborates with fundamental and clinical research groups at McGill University, University of Toronto, and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mazia Divangahi<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Assistant Professor of Medicine and Associate Member, Department of Microbiology & Immunology, McGill University<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Divangahi studies the body\u2019s immune response to respiratory infectious diseases, particularly influenza or tuberculosis. This immune response would be very similar to those caused by coronaviruses like SARS and MERS.<\/p>\n

Ethan Rubinstein<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Head of Infectious Diseases Section, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Manitoba
\nDr. Rubinstein has 30 years of experience studying infectious diseases including respiratory infections like SARS. He has worked in both Canada and Israel.<\/p>\n


-30-<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Second U.S. case of MERS | SMCC Experts Available | May 14, 2014   On Monday May 12, 2014 the U.S. Centres of Disease control reported the \u201cunwelcome but not unexpected\u201d news that a second person in the US has been diagnosed with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. This second case, which occurred in Florida, follows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1421,51,1420,1418,1419,1423,1422],"class_list":["post-1491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-experts-available","tag-coronavirus","tag-health","tag-infectious-diseases","tag-mers","tag-middle-east-respiratory-syndrome","tag-pandemic","tag-virus"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-o3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1491"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1511,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions\/1511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}