Middle East Respiratory Syndrome linked to higher mortality, more severe illness than serious non-MERS infection

Until March 20, 2016, 1690 cases of MERS had been reported to the World Health Organization, with 80 percent of those cases in Saudi Arabia. The reported cases had an overall mortality of 35 percent. The investigators -- led by Yaseen Arabi, MD, chairman, Intensive Care Department, and professor, College of Medicine, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences and King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- embarked on their research because few studies have examined the clinical course of critically ill patients.

They collected data from 14 hospitals in 4 cities in Saudi Arabia and compared critically ill patients with laboratory-confirmed MERS to those admitted with SARI of non-MERS etiology during a similar period.

A total of 299 MERS patients with SARI were admitted to the participating ICUs and were compared with 218 patients with SARI only. Patients with MERS were younger (median age, 58 years) compared with non-MERS patients (median age, 70 years). There were a number of chronic morbidities common in both groups, including diabetes and liver disease. Symptoms such as cough, shortness of breath, and sputum production were also similar.

"Patients with MERS were more likely to be hypoxemic and to require invasive mechanical ventilation (85 percent versus 73 percent, p = 0.001), vasopressor therapy (77 percent versus 55 percent, p = 0.001), and renal replacement therapy (47 percent versus 23 percent, p = 0.001)," the investigators wrote. Mortality was higher in MERS versus non-MERS patients (70 percent versus 36 percent, p = 0.001).