At this year’s World Cup, more than simply “football fever” may spread.
Experts backed by the World Health Organization believe that ‘camel flu,’ a more lethal cousin of Covid, may also spread.
Over the previous decade, dozens of people have contracted Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in the host nation of Qatar.
It can kill up to one-third of those affected.
Disease specialists classified MERS as one of eight potential ‘infection threats’ which may conceivably crop up during the four-week-long competition.
Covid and monkeypox were recognized as the two most potential risks.
Three academics wrote in the journal New Microbes and New Infections that the World Cup “inevitably raises infectious disease hazards.
Professor Patricia Schlagenhauf, an epidemiologist at the Collaborating Centre for Travellers’ Health of the World Health Organization, and her team stated that this applied to Qatar and neighboring nations.
In Saudi Arabia, where MERS was originally detected a decade ago, Qatar is located.
The sheer number of fans who have traveled to Qatar to watch the tournament might also spread diseases to other nations, such as Britain and the United States, according to experts.
It is estimated that approximately 5,000 England and Wales fans would go to the Arab kingdom for the group stages.
They represent a small portion of the 1.2 million estimated fans attending the historic tournament in Qatar.
Britain has only ever recorded five instances of MERS, the most recent being in August 2018 in a traveler from the Middle East.
According to health officials, human-to-human transmission is feasible.
Camels are assumed to be the natural host of the virus, which is from the same family as the virus behind the Covid epidemic.
Because of this, health chiefs already suggest that all guests to the region avoid handling the mammals.
They should also avoid drinking camel milk or urine and consuming undercooked camel meat, according to the infectious disease experts behind the latest advice.
Anyone returning to the United Kingdom with cold-like MERS symptoms is advised to seek medical advice and disclose their travel history so that infection control and testing can be conducted.
Similar procedures triggered an Ebola concern in the United Kingdom last week when an individual who had traveled to Uganda, where the virus is rife and returned with cold-like symptoms.
There is no specific treatment for the disease, thus doctors strive to alleviate the symptoms of their patients. Approximately 35% of people who contract MERS die as a result.
The other two researchers were Dr. Jaffar Al-Tawfiq, an infectious disease consultant at Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare in Saudi Arabia, and Dr. Philippe Gautret of Aix Marseille University in France.
