Reacción a "Reactions to possible cases of "camel virus" (MERS-CoV) at the World Cup in Qatar"

Information on MERS and the procedure for dealing with suspected cases is available on the website of the Ministry of Health. Surveillance for MERS is routinely planned for travellers coming from at-risk areas with compatible symptoms and will continue to be carried out for travellers coming from Qatar for the World Cup. 

The National Microbiology Centre (CNM) is the reference laboratory in Spain for MERS and is responsible for analytical determinations of all suspected cases. In recent years, several cases related to travel to endemic areas have been treated with negative results. We are not aware of any laboratory-confirmed cases of MERS among the teams participating in the World Cup in Qatar so, in the absence of this information, we assume that it is most likely to be respiratory infections caused by other more conventional viruses that are currently actively circulating in the middle of the northern hemisphere winter.