Middle East respiratory syndrome, a cousin of SARS, has sparked global concern for its pandemic potential, but Saudi Arabia has yet to release information that could help protect the rest of the world.

Read Here – Scientific American

But the discovery of Mers carries a story behind it. The man behind it, Ali Mohamed Zaki, discovered the deadly pathogen last June at a microbiology lab at a private hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Zaki had been following up the case of a 60-year-old man who was admitted with a lung infection and died 18 days after symptoms started. When he couldn’t identify the virus, he sent a sample abroad to Ron Fouchier, a Dutch researcher who was able to sequence it. The report that came back was chilling. It was a coronavirus, one never seen before in humans.

Read Here – Gulf News