By Angus McDowall RIYADH - The 40-odd men gathered in a sandy, dung-scattered auction pen at one of Saudi Arabia's largest camel markets were fiercely dismissive of a link scientists have found between the animals and an often fatal virus in humans. The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus has infected 345 people in the conservative Islamic kingdom since it was identified two years ago, causing fever, pneumonia and kidney failure in some, and killing around a third of sufferers. Although many patients in a recent outbreak in Jeddah appear to have become infected through person-to-person transmission in hospitals, MERS has been found in bats and camels, and many experts say the latter form the most likely animal reservoir from which humans are becoming infected. Among the pungent animal pens in Riyadh's camel market, stretching several miles along a highway out of the city, the traders, owners and camel workers said they had been given no advice, information or warnings on MERS by government officials.
via Health News Headlines - Yahoo News http://ift.tt/1pNpgsD
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