Sunday, September 8, 2013

ProMED: MERS-CoV - Eastern Mediterranean (68): animal reservoir, camel, research

Excerpt:
Archive Number: 20130907.1929762
Study reveals more signs of MERS-CoV in camels
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More than 90 percent of camels in Egypt tested positive for MERS-CoV antibodies.

Scientists have found more evidence that many camels in the Middle East have been exposed to the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) or a close relative, increasing the suspicion that camels may have spread the virus to humans.

In serologic tests on 110 dromedary camels in Egypt, one test showed that 94 percent of them had antibodies to MERS-CoV, and a 2nd test revealed antibodies in 98 percent, according to a report in today's [5 Sep 2013] issue of Eurosurveillance [see item 2]. Tests of humans, water buffaloes, cows, and other domestic animals in Egypt and Hong Kong showed no MERS-CoV antibodies.

"The antibody titres were very high" in both sets of tests, "suggesting that the virus infecting these camels was MERS-CoV virus itself or a very closely related virus," says the report by a team of Chinese, Egyptian, and American scientists.
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The team also found that the camel sera with high MERS-CoV antibody levels did not cross-react with the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) coronavirus.

"Taken together, these data indicate that a MERS-CoV or a highly related virus is endemic in dromedary camels imported for slaughter in Egypt," they state. "These findings provide independent confirmation of the results recently reported by Reusken et al [the Dutch-German team], who found very high antibody titres to MERS-CoV in dromedary camels."

Because the camels used in the study had been brought to Egypt from Sudan and other African countries, it is unclear where they originally acquired their infection, the report says. Given the similar findings from camels in Oman and the Canary Islands, "it is likely that this coronavirus is widespread in North and East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula."

If future research confirms that bats and dromedary camels harbor MERS-CoV, "we will have a scenario of a virus reservoir in bats with a peridomestic animal such as the camel as intermediate host, which may in fact be the immediate source of human infection," the investigators say.

They add that in some MERS-CoV index cases, the patients had a history of exposure to camels. "Given that the MERS-like coronavirus in camels appears to be ubiquitous, it remains to be explained why MERS in humans appears relatively rare," they observe.

http://www.promedmail.org/direct.php?id=20130907.1929762

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