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Current map of the general geolocations of more than 700 local MERS-CoV infections on the Arabian Peninsula as of June 25, 2014. Location names are labeled in red. The area of the circle depicts the relative number of reported cases at that location.     Map note: On June 3, the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health announced more than 100 additional MERS cases that occurred between May 2013 and April 2014 ( link ).   No geographic information about these cases was provided by the Ministry of Health and they are not included on this map. Previous map, April 21, 2014 here .

With Saudi Arabia reporting more than 80% of all Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) cases to date, detailed information about the individual cases from Saudi Arabia is critical to understanding the nature and spread of this novel disease. There are some discrepancies among the MERS cases reported by World Health Organization (WHO) from Saudi Arabia. Of course, WHO is constrained by the quality of data provided by its various member states. Generally, WHO provides detailed information on the initial cases of a novel disease outbreak in its online publication, Disease Outbreak News (DON). The first WHO report of a MERS [novel coronavirus] infection was published on September 23, 2012 . Between September 2012 and April 16, 2014, WHO reported details on 228 MERS cases with varying levels of details provided by the reporting member states. Of the 228 cases reported by WHO though that date, 181 were individually reported cases from Saudi Arabia. The DON of April 14, 2014 (15 reported ...

Today, the Ministry of Health (MOH) officials in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) revised upward the number of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) case and MERS-related deaths that have occurred in the KSA ( link ). As noted by Michael Coston ( link ), the KSA MOH added a total of 113 cases and 92 deaths to the official cumulative count from that county. The lack of any details for these additional cases or the individuals who died, precludes determining whether all of the unreported deaths are only from the previously unreported cases. In several instances in recent MOH media reports, there have been reported deaths that could not be correlated with previously reported cases because the combination of age/gender of the reported deaths from a specific location could not be associated with previously reported cases ( link , link ). Through yesterday, publicly reported cases from the KSA represented about 82% of all MERS cases reported from around the world. Today, with these add...