Detection of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus in dromedary camel’s seminal plasma in Saudi Arabia 2015–2017

Abstract

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus was first identified in Saudi Arabia in late 2012 (Zaki, van Boheemen, Bestebroer, Osterhaus, & Fouchier, 2012). Since that time, there are reports of human cases, not only in Saudi Arabia but also in other countries in the Arabian Gulf area, such as UAE, Qatar and Oman. As of now, there are 2,468 MERS-CoV human cases reported from 27 countries around the world (WHO, 2019) with a case fatality rate of 34%(WHO, 2019). Dromedary camels are the main animal reservoir for MERS-CoV (Hemida et al., 2014). Camel to human transmission was reported in many cases (Azhar, El-Kafrawy, et al., 2014; Azhar, Hashem, et al., 2014). Dromedary camels shed the virus, especially in their nasal secretions (Hemida et al., 2014). However, there is a discrepancy about the shedding of the virus in the body secretions of dromedary camels such as urine and milk. MERS-CoV has not been isolated from urine, faeces nor milk of dromedaries, and recent studies showed that no viral nucleic acids were detected in the urine of positive MERS-CoV camels (Farag et al., 2019). It was shown that MERS-CoV can still be detected and survived in the camel milk for a prolonged time under experimental conditions (van Doremalen, Bushmaker, Karesh, & Munster, 2014). One study reported the detection of MERS-CoV-RNAs in the milk of some positive animals. This highlights the potential of a possible shedding of the virus in the milk of the infected animals (Reusken et al., 2014). However, this may be hampered by the milk collection technique and the possibility of faecal contamination to the camel udder

Lack of detection of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) nucleic acids in some Hyalomma dromedarii infesting some Camelus dromedary naturally infected with MERS-CoV

“…The total viral RNAs were extracted from the nasal swabs and the tissue suspensions of ticks using the Qiagen viral RNA kits (RNeasy Mini Kit, Qiagen, Hilden, Germany). The process of these extractions was carried out as previously described [7,14]. Simply, 140 μl per each sample was used to extract the total viral RNAs.…”

“…Testing of the nasal swabs, as well as the tissue suspensions from the collected ticks infesting this dromedary camel herd, was carried out as previously described [7,10,13,14]. Simply, we used the commercially available real-time PCR MERS-CoV kits to test various samples for the presence of the viral nucleic acids.…”

“…Detection of the MERS-CoV-and its nucleic acids (NA) in the nasal and rectal swabs were reported [7,[10][11][12]. New studies also reported the detection of the viral NA in the seminal plasma and breath of some positive MERS-CoV dromedary camels [13,14]. Ticks are among the ectoparasites of many mammalian and avian species.…”

Management of Immunity Alteration-Induced Chronic Pain During the Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic

“…Coronaviruses can infect various vertebrate species, including bats, dogs, and humans (Fan et al, 2019 ; Sit et al, 2020 ). Since the start of the Twenty one century, humans have encountered coronavirus outbreaks three times: severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV-1), in 2003 (de Wit et al, 2016 ), Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV), in 2008 (Hemida et al, 2020 ), and SARS-CoV-2, in 2019 (Wu F. et al, 2020 ). Genetic comparisons have indicated 79.5% similarity between SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV, and the similarity is up to 96% between SARS-CoV-2 and a coronavirus strain isolated from bats (Zhou et al, 2020 ).…”

The Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS‐CoV) nucleic acids detected in the saliva and conjunctiva of some naturally infected dromedary camels in Saudi Arabia ‐2019

“…

Three human coronaviruses are having zoonotic potential; the SARS-CoV emerged in 2003, the MERS-CoV emerged in late 2012, and the SARS-CoV was identified in late 2019. The course of MERS-CoV infection in dromedary camels was studied under the experimental in the USA as well as natural infection in SaudiArabia (Adney et al, 2014;Alnaeem et al, 2020). MERS-CoV infection in camels resulted in very mild clinical signs, particularly rhinorrhea (started as early as 2 days post-infection (dpi) and as late as 5 dpi).

…”