The Indiana Department of Health said in a statement late Saturday that the patient hospitalized in Indiana with the first U.S. case of a mysterious virus that has sickened hundreds in the Middle East is improving and remains at Community Hospital in Munster, according to the Associated Press.
State and federal health officials confirmed the first case of the virus in the United States on Friday, the AP reported. The patient, a male healthcare worker, had traveled to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and began exhibiting symptoms upon his return to the United States, they said.
Separately, Saudi officials on Saturday said the rate of infections was on the rise in the country, where MERS was first discovered in 2012, according to the AP. The total number of cases in the kingdom is 396, of whom more than a quarter have died.
At Community Hospital, however, the news did not seem to create panic among Munster residents soon after it was broadcast on local news outlets, the AP reported. The emergency room was bustling with patients on Friday night, and every one of the nearly 20 seats in the dimly lit waiting area was taken.
"Nobody's freaking out or anything, at least that I can see. Maybe they're all wearing masks upstairs, but not down here," said 24-year-old Michael Gibson, of nearby Hammond, Indiana, who had brought his girlfriend to the hospital for treatment, according to the AP.
Health officials in Britain were contacting any passengers who may have sat next to the patient. U.S. health authorities stressed the case represents a very low risk to the public, the AP reported.
Community Hospital in Munster said it has reached out to anyone who might have been at high risk for exposure and would monitor family members and healthcare workers who had been with the patient, according to the AP. The hospital said the patient had not been circulating in the general community before he was admitted.
But citing "an abundance of caution," Indiana health officials urged people who had visited the hospital's Emergency Department between 6:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on April 28, the night the MERS patient was admitted, to watch for symptoms such as cough, fever and shortness of breath, the AP reported.
