Nearly one-fifth of camels in Saudi Arabia harbour a respiratory virus that emerged in 2012 in humans.
Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has infected more than 1,600 people in 26 countries, killing 584. On the basis of previous evidence that camels carry the virus, a team led by Huachen Zhu and Yi Guan at the University of Hong Kong–Shenzhen Branch in China looked for MERS-CoV and related viruses in 1,309 dromedary camels in Saudi Arabia. One in four camels tested positive for human coronavirus genetic material, and nearly 20% carried a MERS-CoV strain. Some animals carried the lineage that caused a South Korean outbreak this year. Further genome sequencing suggested that this lineage emerged in camels between December 2013 and June 2014, after two viruses recombined.
Preventing camel-to-human transmission is the best way to limit the threat of the virus, the authors say.
Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aac8608 (2015)
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Emerging virus evolves in camels. Nature 528, 439 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/528439d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/528439d