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Since 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been notified of 1626 laboratory-confirmed cases of Middle East Respiratory Virus Syndrome (MERS) as of January 7, 2016 ( link ). These cases have been reported from 26 countries as shown on the map and table below. Cases have been reported from most continents: North America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. No cases have been yet been reported from South America, Australia, or the sparsely inhabited Antarctica. More than 75% of these cases have been reported from Saudi Arabia.  Countries Reporting MERS infections to WHO   Worldwide count of MERS cases   The earliest cases of MERS in 2012 were geographically associated with countries in the Middle East. Numerous cases in Saudi Arabia are reported as “primary cases”, autochthonous cases, which have been infected from local animal hosts. Current research indicates that camel populations on the Arabian Peninsula are a reservoir for this coronavirus, although there may be ot...

Influenza A(H5N6) is an emerging novel avian influenza that apparently derived from a reassortment of A(H5N1) with A(H6N6). H5N6 was first reported in domestic poultry in early 2014 from Laos, Vietnam, and China. Since then it has continued to be widely reported from domestic flocks in these countries (primarily China). In April 2014, the first case of a human infected with the H5N6 influenza virus was reported from Sichuan Province in China. Since then, seven additional human cases have been reported, all from China. The most recent case was reported from Jieyang, Guangdong Province a few days ago. Of these eight cases, six have been reported by the World Health Organization (see links below). Based on onset dates two of these cases occurred in 2014, four in 2015. Onset dates for the two most recent cases have not yet been reported. Among these cases are five males and three females. One of the females was pregnant. Her child was delivered by caesarian section and the woman is appare...

No new human cases of human influenza A(H5N1) infections have been officially reported anywhere in the world since June 2015.[Note] This is a six-month period without reports of any new human cases. Since 2003 when the World Health Organization (WHO) first began reporting human cases of H5N1, the longest interval with no reported H5N1 cases was a span of three months. Three of these 3-month periods of quiescence have occurred, one each in 2004, 2008, and 2012. Is the lack of human H5N1 cases in the last six month a sign that H5N1 is no longer a pandemic threat? Can we breathe a sigh of relief? Paradoxically, the answer is no. The lack of cases in the past six months should not lull us into a sense of complacency. Between January and June in 2015 there were a total of 143 human cases of H5N1 reported. This is the largest number of reported cases of H5N1 in any one year since the WHO started tracking human infections in 2003. The chart below shows the number of H5N1 cases reported by y...