Clinical Implications of 5 Cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Infection in a South Korean Outbreak

Japanese Journal of Infectious Diseases

Ji-Young Rhee¹  Kyoung Min Ryu²  Goohyeon Hong³ 

[1] Division of Infectious diseases, Department of Medicine, Dankook University Hospital;Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Dankook University Hospital, Dankook University College of Medicine;Division of Allergy and Pulmonary Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Dankook University Hospital

关键词: Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus;    viral pneumonia;    South Korean outbreak;   

DOI  :  10.7883/yoken.JJID.2015.445

学科分类：传染病学

来源: National Institute of Infectious Diseases

【 摘 要 】

References(8)Cited-By(1)The Korea Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) was first confirmed on May 20, 2015, with a subsequent outbreak in South Korea. Five patients with suspected MERS-CoA infection were admitted to our hospital during this outbreak. One patient had no major symptoms upon admission, but pneumonia was identified upon chest radiography. Two patients progressed rapidly to acute respiratory failure and required ventilator-assisted respiration. One patient required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation to treat refractory hypoxemia, and one patient died of shock with multiorgan failure. All the patients had fever, myalgia, leucopenia, normal procalcitonin level, and pneumonia. Importantly, clinicians should test for pneumonia in all suspected patients with MERS-CoV infection, even in the absence of respiratory symptoms. The pneumonia usually affected the lower lobes. A shorter incubation period was associated with more severe disease and greater risk of mortality, and the severity of fever predicted the prognosis of MERS-CoV infection-related pneumonia. Therefore, in cases of lower-lobe pneumonia that occur during an MERS-CoV outbreak and are unesponsive to antibiotics, clinicians should consider the possibility of MERS-CoV infection.

【 授权许可】

Unknown