NEW YORK — Health officials on Friday confirmed the first case of an American infected with a mysterious Middle East virus. The man fell ill after arriving in the U.S. last week from Saudi Arabia, where he was a health care worker.
The man is hospitalized in stable condition in northwest Indiana with Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is investigating the case with Indiana health officials.
The virus is not highly contagious, and this case “represents a very low risk to the broader, general public,” Dr. Anne Schuchat told reporters during a CDC briefing.
The federal agency plans to track down passengers he might have been in close contact with during his travels. It was not clear how many people might have been exposed to the virus.
Officials didn’t provide any details about the man’s job in Saudi Arabia or whether he was treating MERS patients there. Saudi Arabia has been the center of a MERS outbreak that began two years ago, and infections have been reported in health care workers.
The MERS virus has been found in camels, but officials don’t know how it is spreading to humans. It can spread from person to person, but officials think that happens only after close contact. But it appears to be unusually lethal — by some estimates, it has killed nearly a third of the people it sickened.
About MERS
MERS belongs to the coronavirus family that includes the common cold and SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which caused about 800 deaths globally in 2003. Overall, at least 400 people have had the respiratory illness, and more than 100 people have died. All had ties to the Middle East or to people who traveled there.
