International health insurance intermediary Medibroker is warning expatriates living or traveling in the Middle East about exposure to Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).
The virus reportedly has infected 176 individuals since it first emerged in 2012, with more than 40% of cases proving fatal. The MERS virus causes symptoms similar to those of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus, such as fever, coughing, and pneumonia.
The majority of MERS cases have been in Saudi Arabia, while the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Qatar have also had incidents. Camels are thought to be potential carriers of the virus, so the World Health Organization is advising care when in the vicinity of these animals, especially in farm or barn areas.
The Middle East is a popular destination for foreign workers, with more 7.5 million expatriates in Saudi Arabia alone, Medibroker noted. The firm is advising its clients to take extra care when traveling to the region.
![Overview of the study design. (A) The fully automated deep learning framework was developed to estimate body composition (BC) (defined as subcutaneous adipose tissue [SAT] in liters; visceral adipose tissue [VAT] in liters; skeletal muscle [SM] in liters; SM fat fraction [SMFF] as a percentage; and intramuscular adipose tissue [IMAT] in deciliters) from MRI. The fully automated framework comprised one model (model 1) to quantify different BC measures (SAT, VAT, SM, SMFF, and IMAT) as three-dimensional (3D) measures from whole-body MRI scans. The second model (model 2) was trained to identify standardized anatomic landmarks along the craniocaudal body axis (z coordinate field), which allowed for subdividing the whole-body measures into different subregions typically examined on clinical routine MRI scans (chest, abdomen, and pelvis). (B) BC was quantified from whole-body MRI in over 66,000 individuals from two large population-based cohort studies, the UK Biobank (UKB) (36,317 individuals) and the German National Cohort (NAKO) (30,291 individuals). Bar graphs show age distribution by sex and cohort. BMI = body mass index. (C) After the performance assessment of the fully automated framework, the change in BC measures, distributions, and profiles across age decades were investigated. Age-, sex-, and height-adjusted body composition reference curves were calculated and made publicly available in a web-based z-score calculator (https://circ-ml.github.io).](https://img.auntminnieeurope.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/05/body-comp.XgAjTfPj1W.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
