Human Infection with MERS Coronavirus after Exposure to Infected Camels, Saudi Arabia, 2013

Abstract

We investigated a case of human infection with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) after exposure to infected camels. Analysis of the whole human-derived virus and 15% of the camel-derived virus sequence yielded nucleotide polymorphism signatures suggestive of cross-species transmission. Camels may act as a direct source of human MERS-CoV infection.

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) RNA and neutralising antibodies in milk collected according to local customs from dromedary camels, Qatar, April 2014

“…Evidence of infection in camels precedes the first evidence of human infection [6,7]. Recently, viral RNA has been detected in different specimens from camels and the virus has been isolated from nasal and faecal samples [6,[8][9][10][11][12].…”

An update on Middle East respiratory syndrome: 2 years later

“…In a previous summary of 161 cases, 49 (30.4%) had contact with animals, 7 (4.3%) had contact with camels and another 7 (4.3%) had contact with sheep [29]. Recent reports showed that a patient was in contact with a diseased camel [56], and one patient treated a sick camel and that two MERS-CoV from the patient and the camel were identical [53,54].…”

“…MERS-CoV was also isolated from camels by PCR in few instances [44,53,54]. Experimental infection of three camels with human isolates of MERSCoV was recently published [55].…”

Bats: carriers of zoonotic viral and emerging infectious diseases

“…Camels play major role in human life in Middle East countries for transportation as well as entertainment. It was hypothesized that dromedary camels act as intermediate host for MERS-CoV infection from bats to humans (Memish et al, 2014). MERS-CoV was also detected in camel milk .…”