الملخص الإنجليزي
Over a year since its first discovery, a new human disease, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), continues to be of major international concern due to its high fatality rate and lack of knowledge regarding its primary source and mode of transmission. It is caused by a novel coronavirus (CoV) MERS-CoV, initially named 2cEMC/2012 (HCoV-EMC) and subsequently renamed as MERSCoV after international consensus . It presents as a spectrum of respiratory diseases and is associated with a high case-fatality rate in persons with comorbid medical conditions [4, 5]. The first MERS case report was from Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), in September 2012 when MERS-CoV was isolated from a Saudi Arabian patient who died from a severe respiratory illness and multiorgan failure .
