Proceeding from the Keenness of the Ministry of Health (MOH) to keep all people in touch with the updates of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Corona Virus (MERS-CoV), and with reference to MOH's recent statement related to the detection of a 43-year-old male case in Jeddah, who is still at one of the governorate’s hospitals receiving the proper treatment, MOH has checked out people in contact with the patient as part of the epidemic surveillance undertaken in a scientific and methodological way. Meanwhile, within the framework of MOH’s efforts to recognize and monitor the source of infection, it has tested some samples of the patient’s surroundings, including a group of camels found in his own stockyard. The initial laboratory test conducted on one of those camels was positive.
Within the same vein, the MOH, in coordination with the Ministry of Agriculture and scientific authorities, currently seeks to confirm tests by isolating and comparing the virus to that of the affected patient, in terms of the genetic structure. Therefore, if both viruses of the patient and the camel were the same, it would be a new discovery for the first time worldwide, the matter which will contribute to making the world recognize the source of the virus, the epidemic proportions of the disease and its ways of transmission, Allah Willing.