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Mers victim delivered baby before death

The 32-year old pregnant woman who died of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (Mers-CoV) on Monday had delivered her baby, confirmed a senior health official.

“She died yesterday,” Dr Jamal Al Kaabi, director of Customer Care and Corporate Communications at the Health Authority-Abu Dhabi (Haad), told Khaleej Times on Tuesday. He added that the baby survived.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Jordanian woman was hospitalised on November 22 and was in a critical condition. She delivered her baby by caesarean at 32 weeks. This is the first time that a pregnant woman was diagnosed with coronavirus.

Dr Asim Malik, consultant and head of infectious diseases at Mafraq Hospital, had earlier warned of the “potentially dangerous complications” to the pregnant woman. He said that coronavirus `causes a variety of complications and could cause respiratory and renal failure.

Her husband, a 38-year old Jordanian with diabetes mellitus, developed the symptoms on November 15 and was admitted to the hospital on November 20. Their eight-year old son had mild respiratory symptoms detected following an investigation of the family contacts. The father was in a critical but stable condition while the son was kept in isolation.

WHO said both the Jordanian couple have no recent travel history, no contact with a known confirmed case and no history of contact with animals.

“Further investigations into close contacts of the family, the newborn baby, and healthcare workers are on-going,” WHO said.

This is the second locally confirmed death in the UAE, out of the eight Mers-CoV laboratory confirmed cases. The first patient who died in August was an 82-year old Emirati man with multiple myeloma who did not have any travel history.

From September 2012, a total of 163 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with Mers-CoV globally, including 68 deaths, has been informed to WHO. Based on the current situation and available information, WHO encourages all member states to continue their surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections (Sari) and to carefully review any unusual patterns.

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