Antibodies Against MERS Coronavirus in Dromedary Camels, United Arab Emirates, 2003 and 2013

Overview

Journal Emerg Infect Dis

Specialty Infectious Diseases

Date 2014 Mar 25

PMID 24655412

Citations 166

Authors

Benjamin Meyer

Marcel A Muller

Victor M Corman

Chantal B E M Reusken

Daniel Ritz

Gert-Jan Godeke

Erik Lattwein

Stephan Kallies

Artem Siemens

Janko van Beek

Jan F Drexler

Doreen Muth

Berend-Jan Bosch

Ulrich Wernery

Marion P G Koopmans

Renate Wernery

Christian Drosten

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has caused an ongoing outbreak of severe acute respiratory tract infection in humans in the Arabian Peninsula since 2012. Dromedary camels have been implicated as possible viral reservoirs. We used serologic assays to analyze 651 dromedary camel serum samples from the United Arab Emirates; 151 of 651 samples were obtained in 2003, well before onset of the current epidemic, and 500 serum samples were obtained in 2013. Recombinant spike protein-specific immunofluorescence and virus neutralization tests enabled clear discrimination between MERS-CoV and bovine CoV infections. Most (632/651, 97.1%) camels had antibodies against MERS-CoV. This result included all 151 serum samples obtained in 2003. Most (389/651, 59.8%) serum samples had MERS-CoV-neutralizing antibody titers >1,280. Dromedary camels from the United Arab Emirates were infected at high rates with MERS-CoV or a closely related, probably conspecific, virus long before the first human MERS cases.

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