Dr. Gupta: People can have MERS that don't know it
For the first time, the Middle East Respiratory syndrome or MERS has spread person-to-person in the United States.
Health officials say an Illinois man contracted the virus after two short business meetings with an infected man from Indiana.
Their only physical contact was a handshake. Now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) wants to test everyone this man came into contact with.
MERS, which originated in Saudi Arabia, kills about 30 percent of its known patients.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is OutFront with the latest.
CDC confirms first U.S. case of MERS, in Indiana
(CNN) - The first U.S. case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus has been reported in Indiana, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
The CDC and the Indiana State Department of Health are conducting a joint investigation into the case, according to a CDC statement.
Further details were to be released at a briefing at 3 p.m. ET.
The coronavirus, known as MERS-CoV, was first reported in the Middle East - specifically, the Arabian Peninsula - in 2012.
Since then, it has sickened 339 people in Saudi Arabia alone and killed nearly a third of them, according to the Saudi Ministry of Health. Late last month, Saudi officials noted a spike in new cases.
MERS-CoV comes from the same group of viruses as the common cold and attacks the respiratory system, according to the CDC. Symptoms, which include fever, cough and shortness of breath, can lead to pneumonia and kidney failure.
Although many of the cases have occurred on the Arabian Peninsula, people have died of the infection elsewhere, including in European countries and Tunisia in North Africa. Egypt also reported a case on Thursday, according to the World Health Organization.
However, all of the people involved contracted the disease in the Middle East before being diagnosed. Limited human-to-human transmission of the disease has also occurred in other countries.
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