Orchestrated Scientific Collaboration: Critical to the Control of MERS-CoV

With the public riveted to the Ebola virus diseaseepidemic this past year, it is not surprising that the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) has fallen off the radar. Time (1) identified the spread of the MERS virus as one of the top 10 underreported stories in 2013 and cited the low number of known reported cases as grossly understating the potential threat. Now, almost 3 years after the World Health Organization an-nounced the first recognized human case of MERS, it has reemerged in the Middle East; however, it is over-shadowed by Ebola and other new emerging infectious diseases. But with a rapidly evolving and new cluster of at least 150 cases in Korea—including 3 generations of transmission and 16 deaths as of 15 June 2015—it is imperative that we assess our progress to date in con-taining and understanding MERS (2).