Purdah? I Hardly Know Ya!: Social Influences On Middle East Respiratory Syndrome

Today in The New York Timescoverage of a report published yesterday on a Saudi hospital-borne outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome released by The New England Journal of Medicine, a potential epidemiological phenomenon was briefly addressed: men have made up the majority of infected cases and the low rates of infection among women may be due to an emphasis on the wearing of the face veil, known as the “niqab,” in Arab culture. An international team investigated the epidemiological characteristics of an outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) among four hospitals in eastern Saudi Arabia that occurred between April 1 to May 23, 2013. Of the 64 cases of MERS since April 2012, the majority have stemmed from Saudi Arabia and identifying the characteristics of disease transmission is of chief concern in controlling further spread of the outbreak. All of the cases thus far have originated within the Middle East, from Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates; beyond the Middle East, the virus has found its way to Britain, France, Italy and Tunisia via traveling tourists, businessmen and healthcare workers.