Dataset Information

Determining the correlation between comorbidities and MERS-CoV mortality in Saudi Arabia.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

As of January 2020, there were 2,519 confirmed Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) cases with 866 deaths across 27 countries. Most of these cases (2,121) were reported in Saudi Arabia. Since the initial identification of MERS, few studies have investigated the role of comorbidities that could potentially lead to mortality in cases of the infectious disease. This study aimed to examine the association between comorbidities and MERS mortality in Saudi Arabia.

Methods

This is a retrospective descriptive study. We retrieved the data published by the World Health Organization (WHO) between January 2017 and November 2019, and analysed the association between comorbidities and mortality.

Results

We found 572 MERS-CoV cases reported by WHO in Saudi Arabia during the defined period. Of these, 387 (68%) had a history of chronic illness. The overall mortality rate was found to be 25%. Diabetes mellitus was the most prevalent comorbidity-the mortality rate in the diabetics was 32% as opposed to 12% in the non-diabetics (p-value <0.01). Hypertension was second, with a mortality rate of 35%, as opposed to 15% in the non-hypertensive patients (p-value <0.001). The mortality rate in cases with cardiovascular disease was 39% as opposed to 21% in those without cardiovascular disease (p-value <0.05).

Conclusion

Our study shows that MERS-CoV had a significant case fatality rate in patients with comorbidities. Thus, it will be beneficial if future clinical trials for MERS-CoV examine the impact of improved societal infection control measures such as social distancing and masks, in the context of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, on the prevalence and incidence of MERS and its clinical outcomes.

SUBMITTER: Alotaibi MH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7952253 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) was primarily detected in 2012 and still causing disease in human and camel. Camel and bats have been identified as a potential source of virus for disease spread to human. Although, significant information related to MERS-CoV disease, spread, infection, epidemiology, clinical features have been published, A little information is available on the sequence diversity of Spike protein gene. The Spike protein gene plays a significant role in virus attachment to host cells. Recently, the information about recombinant MERS-CoV has been published. So, this work was designed to identify the emergence of any another recombinant virus in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. METHODS:In this study samples were collected from both human and camels and the Spike protein gene was amplified and sequenced. The nucleotide and amino acid sequences of MERS-CoV Spike protein gene were used to analyze the recombination, genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationship with selected sequences from Saudi Arabia. RESULTS:The nucleotide sequence identity ranged from 65.7% to 99.8% among all the samples collected from human and camels from various locations in the Kingdom. The lowest similarity (65.7%) was observed in samples from Madinah and Dammam. The phylogenetic relationship formed different clusters with multiple isolates from various locations. The sample collected from human in Jeddah hospital formed a closed cluster with human samples collected from Buraydah, while camel sample formed a closed cluster with Hufuf isolates. The phylogenetic tree by using Aminoacid sequences formed closed cluster with Dammam, Makkah and Duba isolates. The amino acid sequences variations were observed in 28/35 samples and two unique amino acid sequences variations were observed in all samples analyzed while total 19 nucleotides sequences variations were observed in the Spike protein gene. The minor recombination events were identified in eight different sequences at various hotspots in both human and camel samples using recombination detection programme. CONCLUSION:The generated information from this study is very valuable and it will be used to design and develop therapeutic compounds and vaccine to control the MERS-CoV disease spread in not only in the Kingdom but also globally.