MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Ellen Knickmeyer, WSJ – “With 39 deaths globally from a virus outbreak hitting hardest in Saudi Arabia, the government has begun relaying health advisories that children, the elderly, pregnant women and the terminally ill should stay home from this year’s Muslim pilgrimages to the holy city of Mecca.

The pilgrimage for the Muslim hajj holiday, which this year falls in mid-October, annually draws about 3 million faithful from around the world to Mecca. Millions more come on pilgrimage before the hajj, with the pilgrimage season this year peaking in summer and autumn.

The pilgrimage historically has been a global focal point for contagious diseases. A 2012 study of French pilgrims said more than 80% returned with respiratory symptoms, and 40% with flu-like symptoms.

Pilgrimages to Mecca are a central tenet of the Muslim faith. Islam requires all Muslims with the means to make the pilgrimage at least once in their lives.

Saudi Arabia said last week it was cutting the number of pilgrims this year – by 20% for foreigners, and 50% for Saudis – attributing the reduction to construction work in Mecca which has restricted crowd capacity.

But diplomats have suggested that the recent viral outbreak may be another reason for the cuts, announced in Arab news media just as the annual pilgrimage season moves into high gear. Some note that Saudi Arabia issued the same recommendation for the same four groups ahead of the 2009 hajj, amid concerns about the spread that year of the H1N1 avian flu virus.

Since September 2012, the World Health Organization has reported 70 confirmed cases of the new virus, which medical authorities have dubbed the Middle East respiratory-symptom coronavirus, or MERS. The virus is from the same family as the SARS virus which killed more than 700 people a decade ago.” Read more.

Flashback: Specialists: SARS-Like Virus With Extremely High Mortality Rate Plagues Middle East – “A new virus responsible for an outbreak of respiratory illness in the Middle East may be more deadly than SARS, according to a team of infectious disease specialists who recently investigated a set of cases in Saudi Arabia. Of 23 confirmed cases in April, 15 people died — an ‘extremely high’ fatality rate of 65 percent, according to Johns Hopkins senior epidemiologist Trish Perl, a member of the team that analyzed the spread of the virus through four Saudi hospitals. Saudi officials said that as of Wednesday, 49 people have contracted the disease and 32 have died.” Read more.

Flashback: Global Health Officials Worried That Middle East Virus Could Spark Possible World-Wide Outbreak – “Two respiratory viruses in different parts of the world have captured the attention of global health officials – a novel coronavirus in the Middle East and a new bird flu spreading in China. Last week, the coronavirus related to SARS spread to France, where one patient who probably caught the disease in Dubai infected his hospital roommate. Officials are now trying to track down everyone who went on a tour group holiday to Dubai with the first patient as well as all contacts of the second patient. Since it was first spotted last year, the new coronavirus has infected 34 people, killing 18 of them. Nearly all had some connection to the Middle East.” Read more.