Volume 21, Number 11—November 2015
Research
Association of Higher MERS-CoV Virus Load with Severe Disease and Death, Saudi Arabia, 2014
Table 1
Ct for upE gene based on several indicators of severity of illness for 102 patients infected with MERS-CoV, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 2014*
Indicator |
Virus load
|
p value† | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Low, Ct<26, no. (%) | Medium, Ct 27–33, no. (%) | High, Ct>34, no. (%) | ||
Vital status | ||||
Died, n = 41 | 8 (20) | 23 (56) | 10 (24) | 0.0044 |
Survived, n = 61 | 2 (3) | 32 (52) | 27 (44) | |
Composite severity status | ||||
Severe,‡ n = 48 | 8 (17) | 28 (58) | 12 (25) | 0.0060 |
Not severe, n = 54 | 2 (4) | 27 (50) | 25 (46) | |
Hospital location§ | ||||
ICU, n = 36 | 8 (22) | 21 (58) | 7 (19) | 0.018 |
General ward, n = 31 | 2 (6) | 16 (52) | 13 (42) | |
Symptom status¶ | ||||
Symptomatic, n = 30 | 2 (7) | 18 (60) | 10 (33) | 0.064 |
Asymptomatic, n = 30 | 0 | 14 (47) | 16 (53) |
*Ct, cycle threshold; ICU, intensive care unit; MERS-CoV, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus.
†Ordinal χ2 test with 1 degree of freedom.
‡Severe is a composite of patients who died and patients who were admitted to the ICU.
§Among admitted patients.
¶Among surviving patients.