Claim: U.N. says Saudi deportations of Ethiopian migrants risks spreading coronavirus.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: MERS had infected at least 60 people with cases reported in Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Tunisia, Germany, the United Kingdom (UK), France and Italy, with a death toll of 38. Saudi officials expressed great concern that millions of Muslims from around the world would potentially be exposed to the virus during the autumn Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. In May 2014, the WHO said it was monitoring the situation as global cases of MERS appeared to be on the rise, but said the situation did not yet constitute a health emergency. On 3 June 2014,

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: Saudi Arabia. In the latest cluster of infections, 15 cases had been confirmed, and nine of those patients had died. Ten of the 22 people who died and 22 of 44 cases reported were in Saudi Arabia. An unconfirmed case in another Saudi citizen, for which no clinical information was available, was also reported around this time. On 22 September 2012, the Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH) announced that the two cases involving Saudi citizens, caused by what they termed a "rare pattern of coronavirus," had both proven fatal. Two of the Saudi Arabia cases were from the same family

title: Coronavirus
text: 2013, a case of contamination from human to human in France was confirmed by the French Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. In addition, cases of person-to-person transmission have been reported by the Ministry of Health in Tunisia. Two confirmed cases seem to have caught the disease from their late father, who became ill after a visit to Qatar and Saudi Arabia. By Oct. 30 2013, there were 124 cases and 52 deaths in Saudi Arabia. After the Dutch Erasmus Medical Centre sequenced the virus, the virus was given a new name, Human Corona Virus-Erasmus Medical Centre (HCoV-EMC). The final

title: Middle East respiratory syndrome
text: care worker who had been in Saudi Arabia a week earlier, and was reported to be in good condition. A second patient who also traveled from Saudi Arabia was reported in Orlando, Florida on 12 May 2014. On 14 May 2014, officials in the Netherlands reported the first case has appeared. On Saturday, 17 May 2014, a man from Illinois who was a business associate of the first U.S. case (he had met and shook hands with the Indiana health care worker) tested positive for the MERS coronavirus, but has not, as of yet, displayed symptoms (others are probably also,

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: in Saudi Arabia to 1,115 cases and 480 fatalities as of 18 August 2015. Since May, most of the cases have occurred at the King Abdulaziz Medical City, a large national guard hospital. Due to fears of the MERS virus, attendance in the hajj in 2013 was lower than the previous year. The Saudi government asked "elderly and chronically ill Muslims to avoid the hajj this year" and restricted the number of people allowed "to perform the pilgrimage". Saudi Health Minister Abdullah Al-Rabia said "that authorities had so far detected no cases among the pilgrims" of MERS. However, the Spanish

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: government, in November 2013, reported a woman in Spain, who had recently traveled to Saudi Arabia for the Islamic pilgrimage, contracted the disease. On 14 April 2014, one Filipino paramedic died in the United Arab Emirates, with six other reported to be infected with the virus. On 17 April, the UAE Ministry of Health reported another fatality and four additional cases, including the Filipino medical worker who travelled to the Philippines on 16 April. On 21 April 2014, the Health Ministry of UAE reported an additional 9 cases. In April 2012, six hospital workers were diagnosed with acute respiratory failure

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: and from that family at least one additional person presented similar symptoms but tested negative for the novel coronavirus. On 21 February 2013, WHO stated that there had been 13 laboratory-confirmed cases, 6 cases (4 fatal) from Saudi Arabia, 2 cases (both fatal) from Jordan, 2 cases from Qatar, and 3 from the UK. In March 2013, the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health reported the death of a 39-year-old man, the 15th case and 9th death reported to WHO. On 2 May 2013, the Saudi Ministry of Health announced five people died and two other people were in critical condition

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: deaths." On 31 October 2013, the WHO announced that three patients in Saudi Arabia died of MERS. The patients were one woman and two men and "all had underlying medical conditions but all reported having had no contact with animals before falling ill". Early of 23 April 2014, 11 new cases including a first case for Mecca were reported by the Health Ministry. An additional 13 cases were reported on the same day. With the additional reported cases, there are now a total of 285 cases with 83 deaths in the Kingdom. A hospital-related outbreak in Riyadh brought the total

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: published in "The New England Journal of Medicine" indicated that camel to human transmission of the virus was possible. In November 2013, a man became ill with MERS after tending to a sick camel. DNA samples taken from the man, who eventually died of the virus, and the sick animal were virtually identical providing very strong evidence the man had got the virus from the camel. On 20 May 2013, the novel coronavirus reached Tunisia killing one man and infecting two of his relatives. Tunisia was the eighth country to be affected by MERS-CoV after Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the

title: Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus
text: camel strains are intermixed suggesting multiple transmission events. The first confirmed case was reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Egyptian virologist Dr. Ali Mohamed Zaki isolated and identified a previously unknown coronavirus from the man's lungs. Dr. Zaki then posted his findings on 24 September 2012 on ProMED-mail. The isolated cells showed cytopathic effects (CPE), in the form of rounding and syncytia formation. A second case was found in September 2012, a 49-year-old male living in Qatar presented with similar flu symptoms, and a sequence of the virus was nearly identical to that of the first case. In November 2012,

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: said virus. The Evangelista Medical Hospital in San Pedro, Laguna, the facility where the patient was first admitted, was temporarily closed by DOH for fourteen days. On 17 February 2015, all those who had exposure or had contact with the said nurse were tested negative of the said virus. On 6 March 2015, The Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed three Filipino female healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia who were infected with MERS-CoV. On 6 July 2015, DOH confirmed the second detected case of MERS-CoV in the country. The patient who had contracted the virus was from the Middle East and

title: Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus
text: endemic human betacoronaviruses HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-HKU1. Until 23 May 2013, MERS-CoV had frequently been referred to as a SARS-like virus, or simply the novel coronavirus, and earlier it was referred to colloquially on messageboards as the "Saudi SARS". Over 2,000 cases of MERS have been reported by 2017 and the case fatality rate is >30%. 182 genomes have been sequenced by 2015 (94 from humans and 88 from dromedary camels). All sequences are >99% similar. The genomes can be divided into two clades - A and B - with the majority of cases being caused by clade B. Human and

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: being followed up. On 31 May 2013, the Italian health ministry announced its first case of MERS-CoV in a 45-year-old man who had traveled to Jordan. The patient is being currently treated in a hospital in Tuscany and his condition was reported as not life-threatening. On 1 November 2013, a woman who had recently traveled to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj, contracted the disease. She is stated to be in stable condition, and investigators from the World Health Organization are investigating whom she came in contact with. In February 2013, the first UK case of the novel coronavirus was confirmed

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: 2013, the Coronavirus Study Group of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses adopted the official designation, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV). which was adopted by the World Health Organization to "provide uniformity and facilitate communication about the disease" By May 2013, 10 of the 22 people who died and 22 of 44 cases reported were in Saudi Arabia and over 80% were male. This gender disparity is thought to be because most women in Saudi Arabia wear veils that cover the mouth and nose, decreasing their chances of being exposed to the virus. By 19 June 2013,

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: with confirmed cases of a SARS-like virus. The delays in obtaining data and absence of basic information (which would usefully include: sex, age, other medical conditions and smoking status) have been noted and decried by Dr. Margaret Chan and in Pro-Med comments on numerous briefings. At the annual meeting of the world’s health ministers, Dr. Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, said the virus was now her “greatest concern.” On 28 May 2013, the Saudi Ministry of Health reported five more cases of MERS-CoV. The cases have been "recorded among citizens in the Eastern Region, ranging in age from

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: 73 to 85 years, but they have all chronic diseases." With this announcement, the unofficial global case count reached 49 while the death toll stands at 24 according to the CDC. As of 26 June 34 deaths have been recorded in the kingdom. On 1 August 2013, the World Health Organization announced three new MERS-CoV cases in that Saudi Arabia, all of them in women, two of whom were healthcare workers. "With the three new cases, Saudi Arabia's posted MERS tally increases to 74 cases with 39 deaths. The cases raise the WHO's MERS count to 94 cases and 46

title: World Health Assembly
text: citizens by limiting scientific investigations. Following the 2012 MERS outbreak in Saudi Arabia, Deputy Health Minister Ziad Memish raised concerns that scientists who applied for a patent would not allow the MERS-coronavirus to be used for investigations by other scientists and were therefore delaying the development of diagnostic tests. Ten of the 22 people who died and 22 of 44 cases reported were in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia–based microbiologist Ali Mohamed Zaki reported the first known case, a 60-year-old Saudi man who got sick in June, 2012 on ProMed-mail, a public health on-line forum then published more details including the

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: have been at least 3800 quarantined. On 16 April 2014, Malaysia reported its first MERS-COV related death. The person was a 54-year-old man who had traveled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, together with pilgrimage group composed of 18 people, from 15–28 March 2014. He became ill by 4 April, and sought remedy at a clinic in Johor on 7 April. He was hospitalized by 9 April and died on 13 April. On May 11, 2014, two persons on Medan were suspected infected by MERS-Cov (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome-Corona Virus). On 31 October 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that one

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: person in Oman has MERS. The WHO said "the patient in Oman is a 68-year-old man from Al Dahkliya region who became ill" on 26 October 2013. On 16 April 2014, an OFW who returned from Al Ain City, United Arab Emirates was found positive for MERS-CoV at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. The said person was tested for the said virus in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) but immediately travelled to Manila. Doctors from UAE later contacted Department of Health (DOH) confirming the condition of the OFW. The said OFW, who was working as a nurse in the UAE,

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: in Manchester in an elderly man who had recently visited the Middle East and Pakistan; it was the 10th case globally. The man's son, whom he visited in the hospital in Birmingham, was immuno-suppressed because of a brain tumour, and contracted the virus, providing the first clear evidence for person-to-person transmission. He died on 19 February 2013. The second patient was a 49-year-old Qatari man who had visited Saudi Arabia before falling ill. He was flown privately by air ambulance from Doha to London on 11 September where he was admitted to St Mary's Hospital and later was transferred to