Metadata about: BACKGROUND: The continuing circulation of MERS in the Middle East makes the international dissemination of the disease a permanent threat. To inform risk assessment, we investigated the spatiotemporal pattern of MERS global dissemination and looked for factors explaining the heterogeneity observed in transmission events following importation. METHODS: We reviewed imported MERS cases worldwide up to July 2015. We modelled importations in time based on air travel combined with incidence in Middle East. We used the detailed history of MERS case management after importation (time to hospitalization and isolation, number of hospitals visited,…) in logistic regression to identify risk factors for secondary transmission. We assessed changes in time to hospitalization and isolation in relation to collective and public health attention to the epidemic, measured by three indicators (Google Trends, ProMED-mail, Disease Outbreak News). RESULTS: Modelled importation events were found to reproduce both the temporal and geographical structure of those observed – the Pearson correlation coefficient between predicted and observed monthly time series was large (r = 0.78, p < 10(−4)). The risk of secondary transmission following importation increased with the time to case isolation or death (OR = 1.7 p = 0.04) and more precisely with the duration of hospitalization (OR = 1.7, p = 0.02). The average daily number of secondary cases was 0.02 [0.0,0.12] in the community and 0.20 [0.03,9.0] in the hospital. Time from hospitalisation to isolation decreased in periods of high public health attention (2.33 ± 0.34 vs. 6.44 ± 0.97 days during baseline attention). CONCLUSIONS: Countries at risk of importation should focus their resources on strict infection control measures for the management of potential cases in healthcare settings and on prompt MERS cases identification. Individual and collective awareness are key to substantially improve such preparedness. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12879-016-1787-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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