MERS-CoV Fatal Infections In Children In Eastern KSA
Recombinomics Commentary 23:00
May 16, 2013

Which reduced the time the Minister of Health of Corona virus turned into an epidemic, died yesterday of a child infected with the virus (10 years) at Qatif Central Hospital, bringing the death toll to 16 people.

Sources in the hospital for medical "home" has been receiving two cases riddled with the virus after their transfer from a hospital in Al-Ahsa. The sources pointed out that the baby died after his health deteriorated, result satisfactory complications due to the virus, while the other injured were transported to a hospital isolation room.

In the meantime, the Ministry of Health announced yesterday for the registration of two cases confirmed in the eastern region of the health practitioners;

The above translation describes the death of a 10 year old in Qatif (see map) who transferred to the central hospital from Al-Ahsa.  The description strongly suggests that the death was due to MERS-CoV, but the case has not been cited at the KSA MoH website or the WHO coronavirus website.  This death follows the death of a 9 year old girl who was initially described on May 5.  The case was cited at a press conference that described nCoV cases and two cases (9M and 21M) were detailed.  Earlier reports had indicated 5 classmates of the fatal case (9F) had been hospitalized with SARS-like symptoms, but non-disclosure agreement was required, raising serious transparency issues.  Two other fatal cases (10 and 11 year olds) had also been described, as had the death of an eighteen year old.

However, none of the cases have been reported as confirmed MERS-CoV cases even though some trace back to last month, and some are associated with school closings.

Recent media reports also noted that 560 suspect cases had been tested in May and 30 recent cases were still being reviewed.  Moreover, the two MERS-CoV confirmed health care practitioners have been described as Aramco technicians running MERS-CoV PCR tests in Dhahran (see map), although some reports say they were doctor and nurse who were exposed to infected patients.

The large number of confirmed and suspect cases raise concerns that the reporting of the younger cases is being delayed or withheld due to concerns of alarm or false negatives, which are common especially if testing is not done on samples from the lower respiratory tract.
 
More detail on reasons why the fatal cases have not been reported would be useful. 

Moreover, the absence of any confirmed cases following the six cases reported two days ago raises additional transparency concerns.

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