WHO/R. Sidani6 June 2014 | Cairo, Egypt – A team from the WHO has concluded a 5-day mission in United Arab Emirates (UAE) to assess the risk posed by the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in the country. Health authorities in UAE had invited WHO to review the current situation after an upsurge of cases in April.

The team had extensive meetings with experts from the Health Authority Abu Dhabi, Dubai Health Authority and the Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority. The team also visited the hospital to which two-thirds of the country’s cases can be traced, in order to review the epidemiological investigation and assess the infection prevention and control measures that have been applied.

The preliminary result of the mission indicates that the cases in UAE do not show evidence of sustained human to human infection.