In the past month, Middle East respiratory syndrome has morphed from a little-known disease in the Arabian Peninsula to a major global health concern, with more than 300 cases in Saudi Arabia in April, 54 of them fatal.

Two cases have been reported in the U.S. as well — one in Indiana and one in Florida. Both men had worked in Saudi Arabia hospitals. So far, neither has spread the respiratory disease to others.

In a news conference today, the World Health Organization in Geneva stopped short of declaring MERS an international public health emergency.

But health officials expect to see more cases imported into the States. American hospitals are now working to recognize the flu-like disease early and keep it from spreading.

Although MERS doesn't appear to be highly infectious in people's homes or in airplanes, it's clearly spreading in hospitals. That's where many of the Saudi infections occurred.

"This is not like measles ... not like chickenpox — which are [both] highly communicable diseases," says epidemiologist Trish Perl at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. "But the reality is that there is something in health care [centers] where the communicability is much more prominent."

It's not clear what makes hospitals so risky. Some medical procedures — breathing treatments, certain exams — might propel more virus into the atmosphere.

Or it could be human error. A WHO team in Saudi Arabia last week saw breaches of infection control.

Perl says the protocols are actually quite simple. "It's about separating sick people from nonsick people," she says. "And it's about wearing the appropriate gear."

By gear she means standard hospital gloves, masks and gowns. Staff need to be shown how to use this gear properly — for instance, changing their surgical gowns every time they enter or exit isolation units.

"Every single person in this emergency room or any emergency will tell you they're super, super busy. They're too busy to do this or that and whatever," she says. "How do they prioritize in their list of business what are the most important things to do?"

Getting all hospital workers to comply with standard infection control procedures — all the time — was a key to stopping an outbreak of SARS in 2003, says Georgetown University infectious disease specialist Daniel Lucey, who worked in a Toronto hospital at the time.

When hospital personnel donned personal protective equipment, Lucey recalls, "someone stood there and monitored you to make sure you followed, step by step by step, putting it on properly and taking it off."

WHO is calling for Saudi hospitals to tighten infection control measures. Hospitals worldwide need to be equally vigilant, since a MERS patient could fly anywhere in the world before being diagnosed.

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A healthcare worker is in the hospital with pneumonia-like symptoms after interacting with a patient with the MERS virus in Central Florida. Officials say MERS - which stands for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome - is unlikely to spread far from the man at Orlando's Dr. P. Phillip's Hospital.

The 44 year-old man caught the virus at a hospital in Saudi Arabia. He was near others on the plane, at Orlando Regional Medical Center and at Dr. P. Phillip's. But, officials say, he didn't have a cough during most of that time, and the virus spreads through very close contact with infected bodily fluids.Dr. Kevin Sherin is Director of the Florida Department of Health in Orange County.

"The risk to the healthcare workers who were caring for him immediately, there might be perhaps a subset that might be at a somewhat greater risk", Sherin said. "Or, the household members there'd be at greater risk – but not those that were in the waiting areas of those two venues."

Officials say 19 other healthcare workers who were near the man are on mandatory leave for two weeks.

The Centers for Disease Controls says MERS kills about 30% of those infected.

  Health officials Monday confirmed the second case of MERS in the United States is in Florida. The Centers for Disease Control says the patient is isolated in an Orlando hospital. The patient is a health care provider who lives and works in Saudi Arabia.

Florida Surgeon General John Armstrong says MERS is serious, but the threat from this case is low.

"MERSCoV is not easy to spread, and there is no broad risk presented to the public from this case identified in Orange County", said Armstrong.

Federal health officials say the patient was visiting family in Orlando and was not visiting any theme parks.

A physician at Orlando Health's "Dr. P. Phillips Hospital" in southwestern Orange County says the patient is in good condition and is improving.

This is the second imported case of MERS - Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome - in the United States.

MERS is a respiratory illness that begins with flu-like fever and cough but can lead to shortness of breath, pneumonia and death.

The second U.S. case of a dangerous new virus from the Middle East has been found in Florida, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.

The patient is a health care worker from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, who developed symptoms May 1 while traveling to Orlando, Fla., to visit family, the CDC said.

MERS is a life-threatening respiratory infection that first emerged on the Arabian Peninsula in 2012. The virus is related to one that causes the common cold and SARS, which sparked a worldwide alarm in 2003.

There have been 538 confirmed MERS cases reported globally, including 148 deaths. Most cases have occurred in Saudi Arabia. But travelers have carried the virus to other parts of the world, including the U.K., France and Malaysia.

State and federal health officials are working to make sure the virus does not spread in Florida, CDC Director Thomas Frieden said in a telephone briefing for reporters. But there's no reason for widespread alarm.

"Our experience with MERS, so far, suggests the risk to the public is extremely low," Frieden said. The virus doesn't appear to spread easily from one person to another, he added.

Nevertheless, officials are tracking down hundreds of people who may have had contact with the patient during flights to London, Boston, Atlanta and Orlando.

The man developed a fever, chills and a slight cough during the first flight. He was admitted to a hospital after seeking care at an emergency room. He didn't visit Disney World before getting admitted to the hospital, the CDC said.

The man is now in isolation, but he's doing well, officials said. No additional information about the patient has been released.

The first U.S. case of MERS was detected in Indiana in late April. A man caught the virus while working in a hospital in the Saudi capital. He then flew from Riyadh to London and then Chicago, where he developed symptoms. He later took a bus to Munster, Ind., where he was visiting family and went to an emergency room.

There's no indication the man infected anyone else on his trip or in the hospital where he was treated. He was released from the Community Hospital in Munster on Sunday, after doctors determined he was no longer infectious.

"The patient has tested negative for MERS, is no longer symptomatic and poses no threat to the community," Alan Kumar, the hospital's chief medical information officer, said in a written statement.

Health officials around the country are closely watching for MERS because there's no vaccine or treatment for it. And they're still not sure how people catch the virus. Most signs point to camels. The virus is widespread in the animals; some people have had contact with camels or their milk before getting sick.

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