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An international team of scientists has discovered Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and warns that only a few mutations are missing to make it a major pandemic threat.
- The MERS coronavirus attacked people in the Arabian Peninsula in 2012
- It causes atypical pneumonia, with the risk of respiratory failure and death (currently at the level of 36% of patients).
- Coronaviruses cross species barriers, causing zoonoses and pandemics
- The WHO has identified MERS-CoV as the most infectious disease in the world of public health
- You can find more such stories on the TvoiLokony home page
The path of the virus is bats – dromedaries – human
Tests of the virus have shown that it is highly lethal – around 40 percent. patients died due to infection. Currently, the mortality rate is also high, amounting to 36%. Scientists have found that most infections come from infected dromedaries. They also found evidence that dromedaries were infected by infected bats.
- Also read: Another symptom of “COVID-19 long tail”. Women observe disturbing changes
The MERS coronavirus attacked people on the Arabian Peninsula in 2012, causing atypical pneumonia, with the risk of respiratory failure and death.
Also read: Why are there so few COVID-19 cases in African countries? Experts answer
One of the secrets about this virus is why more Africans have not been infected given the number of dromedaries and their interactions on the African continent.
To find out, scientists collected samples of the virus from various locations in the Middle East and Africa, looking for variants and grouping them, then genetically compared samples in the laboratory using human lung cells.
The African variant infects less, but only for a while
The differences between the variants came down to the amino acids in the S protein. Genetic engineering of the African variant made it easier to infect human cells. Scientists compared MERS-CoV from West, North and East Africa with those from the Arabian Peninsula and showed that viruses from Africa had a lower ability to replicate in human bronchial and lung epithelium and mouse lungs.
The reason why the Middle East MERS variant has not yet jumped to Africa and has not mutated there is in the direction in which dromedary trade is currently taking place. Most of the animals are sold from Africa to the Asian market, not the other way around. A change in trade is therefore sufficient for the Middle East MERS variant to threaten another continent. The researchers note that if at some point the trade reverses or another animal becomes a carrier and is sold to Africa, mutations could arise that would trigger a deadly pandemic.
WHO calls for the prevention of another pandemic
Coronaviruses are crossing species barriers, causing zoonoses and pandemics, of which COVID-19 is the most recent example of this. SARS emerged from bats and spread around the world in 2003. The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), first diagnosed in 2012, is a worldwide respiratory zoonotic disease and dromedary camels are a source of zoonotic infection. While many zoonotic MERS infections have been sporadic, some have resulted in large outbreaks of human-to-human transmission involving over 100 people.
- Also read: Are we going to face another pandemic?
MERS-CoV has been defined by the World Health Organization as an infectious disease of the greatest importance to public health in the world and for which countermeasures are urgently needed.
Experts agree that the greatest threat, and perhaps another pandemic, is zoonotic viruses, and that humans increase the risk by increasing population and density, which is conducive to virus transmission.
Also read:
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- However, a bat? Scientists have found novel coronaviruses similar to SARS-CoV-2 in flying mammals
- Indian mutation in Sweden. Anders Tegnell comments on the situation
- Italy: An 18-year-old girl died of AstraZeneca vaccine
- Why do I need booster doses of vaccines? [WE EXPLAIN]
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