Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Several animals have been earmarked as
potential reservoirs, including camels, bats, and goats. A new study supports camels
as a zoonotic reservoir.
Researchers inoculated camels with MERS. The camels did not
show major clinical complications from MERS. The camels shed large quantities
of MERS virus from the upper respiratory tract. The virus develops in the upper
respiratory tract. Infectious viral particles were in nasal secretions for up
to seven days after the inoculation; viral RNA appeared in nasal secretions for
up to thirty-five days post-inoculation.
MERS has been found in nasal swabs of camels from a farm
where the human owners had MERS. This information is useful in light of the efforts
to develop a vaccine, developed by the NIH, which may be given to camels to
limit the spread of the disease.
Madeleine Bousquet
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