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Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Essay

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Infectious disease is considered an ever evolving issue world-wide. A number of health officials and idealists believed that the threat of infectious disease would have been eradicated by now.1 Infectious disease remains the leading cause of death across the globe and the third leading cause of death in the United States.2 Within the scope of infectious disease, the most common cause of illness is viral respiratory tract infections, also referred to as VRTI.3 Recently, a new strain of virus related to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome commonly referred to as SARS has been identified.4,5 The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome is a viral infection that affects the respiratory tract in humans and has recently been discovered in a small …show more content…

Typically, most patients diagnosed with MERs-CoV are around the average age of 50.8 However, anyone has a potential risk for getting MERs-CoV, despite age or gender. People who are immunocompromised or have underlying medical conditions are at a greater risk for infection.
A number of studies have supported the theory that the virus had originally occurred in animals previous to human infections.5 The MERs-CoV virus is a type of coronavirus that has been known for infecting both birds and many species of mammals. These types of infections are commonly referred to as zoonotic diseases because the pathogens are able to be transferred from animals to humans. Zoonosis can happen with or without a vector in order to spread the infection. Although the exact origin of the MERs-CoV infections is unknown, there has been convincing research performed that has found related types of coronaviruses in bats and camels. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the coronavirus is found in multiple species and can cause respiratory illness and gastrointestinal upset.
The MERs-CoV pathogen is an enveloped RNA virus that is a genus of the Betacoronavirus which is a subtype of the coronavirinae family.6 The coronavirus gets its name from the spikes on its surface that gives it a crown or halo type

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