SAUDI ARABIA – The Saudi government said Monday that a camel has tested positive for MERS, the first case of an animal infected with the coronavirus that has killed 64 people worldwide.
A camel owned by a person diagnosed with the disease had “tested positive in preliminary laboratory checks,” the health ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.
The ministry said it was working with the ministry of agriculture and laboratories to “isolate the virus and compare its genetic structure with that of the patient’s”.
If the virus carried by the camel and that of the patient “prove to be identical, this would be a first scientific discovery worldwide, and a door to identify the source of the virus,” it added.
The camel was diagnosed in the western province of Jeddah, it said.
Experts are struggling to understand the virus known as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, for which there is no vaccine.
It is considered a deadlier but less-transmissible cousin of the SARS virus that erupted in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, nine per cent of whom died.
In August, researchers pointed to Arabian camels as possible hosts of the virus, which has hit hardest in the desert kingdom, where 53 people have died from the disease since it appeared in September 2012.
Like SARS, MERS appears to cause a lung infection, with patients suffering from a temperature, cough and breathing difficulty.
But it differs in that it also causes rapid kidney failure and the extremely high death rate has caused serious concern.
In other Gulf countries two fatalities from the MERS virus have been registered in Qatar, as well as one announced on Sunday by Oman.
The World Health Organisation said on its website on Monday that it has been informed of 153 laboratory-confirmed cases of the MERS infection worldwide so far, including 64 deaths.
– AFP
For more info about MERS virus, get the ebook below
– 2013 Complete Guide to MERS-CoV, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus – Serious Emerging Threat Related to SARS, Clinical Management, Prevention and Control, Official Guidelines –
The Contents include:
* Part 1 – CDC Severe Respiratory Illness Associated with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV)
* Part 2 – Laboratory Biorisk Management for Laboratories Handling Human Specimens Suspected or Confirmed to Contain Novel Coronavirus: Interim Recommendations – World Health Organization
* Part 3 – Naming of the Novel Coronavirus – World Health Organization
* Part 4 – Global Overview Of an Emerging Novel Coronavirus (MERS-CoV)
* Part 5 – Interim Guidance Document: Clinical Management of Severe Acute Respiratory Infections When Novel Coronavirus is Suspected: What To Do And What Not To Do – World Health Organization
* Part 6 – Interim Guidelines for Collection, Processing and Transport of Clinical Specimens from Patients Under Investigation for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)
* Part 7 – Interim Laboratory Biosafety Guidelines for Handling and Processing Specimens Associated with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)
* Part 8 – Interim Surveillance Recommendations For Human Infection With Novel Coronavirus
* Part 9 – Infection Prevention and Control During Health Care for Probable or Confirmed Cases of Novel Coronavirus (nCov) Infection
* Part 10 – Laboratory Testing for Novel Coronavirus Interim Recommendations – World Health Organization * * Appendix 1 – Outbreak Case Definitions
* Appendix 2 – Technical Guidelines for Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response in the African Region
* Appendix 3 – Guideline for Isolation Precautions: Preventing Transmission of Infectious Agents in Healthcare Settings (2007).
Click below picture to buy the ebook