Here we review the existing evidence of animal alphacoronaviruses ( Alphacoronavirus 1 species ) circulating in human patients with acute respiratory illness. Thus far, the viruses similar to canine, feline and porcine alphacoronaviruses (including the most recent CCoV-HuPn-2018 and HuCCoV_Z19) have been detected in humans in Haiti, Malaysia, Thailand, and USA. The available data suggest that these viruses emerged in different geographic locations independently and have circulated in humans for at least 20 years. Additional studies are needed to investigate their prevalence and disease impact.

The COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has led to a significant number of deaths globally and negative health consequences.  Accurate early diagnosis, surveillance, identification of cohorts, and prophylaxis are considered essential measures to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2. There is a need for a reliable, fast, high-throughput screening method that can identify sick patients. Since respiratory viruses are typically present in nasal and oral secretions, saliva would be a good target for testing. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) remains the gold standard for sensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection in biological samples. Although PCR testing for COVID is sensitive (500 virions per ml) and widely used by hospitals, the method has a false-negative rate of 15–20% and is kit based. Saliva testing has slowly gained popularity in the diagnostic market for testing based on biomarkers and other constituents ranging from organic compounds (e.g., food additives), peptides, and even microorganisms. In this paper, we will show how the SpecID Mass Spectrometer can detect the presence of a virus in saliva at very low levels. The main goal of the study consisted of addressing the shortcomings of existing methodologies, by providing a reliable, high-throughput, rapid, modified mass spectrometer to detect viruses in saliva, including but not limited to SARS-CoV-2