Outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, Saudi Arabian experience

OBJECTIVE: MERS-CoV infection is uncommonly identified among patients visiting healthcare facilities & we were vigilant in screening all patients entering our hospital to prevent cross infection among patients, visitors & healthcare providers and aiming to prevent potential outbreaks with MERS-CoV infection. In spite of our efforts on practicing Failure Mode Effect Analysis for MERS-CoV infection management we ended up having an outbreak with MERS-CoV. Based on our experience, we actively implemented policies, procedures & practices on early identification & appropriate isolation practices along with supplemental infection prevention & control measures for preventing future outbreaks at our healthcare facility. METHODS: Retrospectively we analyzed our failure in preventing the outbreak of MERS-CoV infection among our hospitalized patients by identifying the outbreak & actively intervening as a team to control the outbreak with the support of Hospital Higher management, Administrators, Quality improvement team, Infection prevention & control team & the active support of all healthcare workers of the facility. RESULTS: Following the early identification of MERS-CoV outbreak, we could successfully prevent large scale outbreak both in the hospital & the community. CONCLUSION: Continuous implementation of infection prevention & control standards along with early clinical diagnosis of MERS-CoV infections based on the case definition as laid out by the Ministry of Health will prevent infectious outbreaks at healthcare facilities.