Kuwait free of coronavirus

The Kuwait Ministry of Health announced on Friday that the country is free of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, MERS-CoV.

According to the Kuwait News Agency, KUNA, the ministry explained that all required precautions were taken to address the spread of the coronavirus, adding that the country is "fully free of this epidemic".

There is no case diagnosed with coronavirus, the Minister's assistant undersecretary for public health affairs, Dr. Magda Al Qattan told KUNA.

She denied allegations circulated on social networking sites that there are infections with coronavirus in the country, adding that actions undertaken by the ministry were just "precautionary measures".

Dr. Al Qattan said the ministry contacted competent authorities in neighbouring countries as well as concerned bodies in Kuwait to take all necessary precautionary measures to confront and prevent an epidemic spreading across borders.

KUNA reported that Al Qattan emphasised that no information was received from the World Health Organisation, WHO, and other relevant bodies on the spread of MERS-CoV. "Despite this, the ministry has issued precautionary directives to intensify epidemiological surveillance and take the highest precaution," she noted.

According to WHO, at the end of February 2019, a total of 2,374 laboratory-confirmed cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome, MERS, including 823 associated deaths were reported globally; the majority of these cases were reported from Saudi Arabia.

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