• Hamzah Z Farooq, Emma Davies, Shazaad Ahmad, Nicholas Machin, Louise Hesketh, Malcolm Guiver, and Andrew J Turner.
• Department of Virology, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, United Kingdom; Department of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, North Manchester General Hospital, Manchester, United Kingdom; Public Health Laboratory Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom. Electronic address: H.farooq@nhs.net.
• Int. J. Infect. Dis. 2020 Apr 1; 93: 237-244.

BackgroundMiddle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and caused an epidemic in the Middle East. Public Health England (PHE) Manchester is one of the two PHE centres in the UK that perform testing for MERS-CoV. The results of the PHE Manchester MERS surveillance from 2012 to 2019 are presented in this report.MethodsRetrospective data were collected for returning travellers from the Middle East fitting the PHE MERS case definition. Respiratory samples were tested for respiratory viruses and MERS-CoV using an in-house RT-PCR assay.ResultsFour hundred and twenty-six (426) samples from 264 patients were tested for MERS Co-V and respiratory viruses. No MERS-CoV infections were identified by PCR. Fifty-six percent of samples were PCR positive for viral or bacterial pathogen with Influenza A as the predominant virus (44%). Sixty-two percent of all patients had a pathogen identified with the highest positivity from sputum samples. Patients with multiple samples demonstrated a 100% diagnostic yield.ConclusionsAlthough no cases of MERS were identified, the majority of patients had Influenza infection for which oseltamivir treatment was indicated and isolation warranted. Sputum samples were the most useful in diagnosing respiratory viruses with a 100% diagnostic yield from patients with multiple samples.Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

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