Coronavirus - Photo Credit WHO
# 7511
Yesterday the CDC’s EID journal published a letter from researchers from Germany and South Africa who report detecting the closest relative yet to the MERS coronavirus in the feces of a bat sampled in South Africa – more than 3,000 miles from the outbreak in the Middle East.
Although bats have been tentatively linked to the MERS virus (see EID Journal: EMC/2012–related Coronaviruses in Bats & Coronavirus `Closely Related’ To HK Bat Strains) a really close match to MERS coronavirus has yet to be isolated from an animal host.
Many researchers also suspect that an intermediary host – one that amplifies the virus – may be involved in the chain of transmission leading to human infection as well.
Although not an exact match, and only isolated from one bat, this latest discovery points to another avenue of research in the hunt for the origins of this virus.
First, a link to the EID article, then some excerpts from the press release from the University of Bonn.
Volume 19, Number 10—October 2013
Letter
Close Relative of Human Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus in Bat, South Africa
To the Editor: The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002–03 and the subsequent implication of bats as reservoir hosts of the causative agent, a coronavirus (CoV), prompted numerous studies of bats and the viruses they harbor. A novel clade 2c betacoronavirus, termed Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)–CoV, was recently identified as the causative agent of a severe respiratory disease that is mainly affecting humans on the Arabian Peninsula (1).
Extending on previous work (2), we described European Pipistrellus bat–derived CoVs that are closely related to MERS-CoV (3). We now report the identification of a South Africa bat derived CoV that has an even closer phylogenetic relationship with MERS-CoV.
Does the dangerous new Middle East coronavirus have an African origin?
Researchers discover a close relative in South African bats
IMAGE: In this animal the scientists from the University Bonn (Germany) and from South Africa found a virus that ist genetically more closely related to MERS-CoV than any other known virus....
The MERS-coronavirus is regarded as a dangerous novel pathogen: Almost 50 people have died from infection with the virus since it was first discovered in 2012. To date all cases are connected with the Arabian peninsula. Scientists from the University Bonn (Germany) and South Africa have now detected a virus in the faeces of a South African bat that is genetically more closely related to MERS-CoV than any other known virus. The scientists therefore believe that African bats may play a role in the evolution of MERS-CoV predecessor viruses. Their results have just been published online in the journal "Emerging Infectious Diseases".
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A collaboration of researchers from the Institute of Virology at the University Bonn, Germany, the University of Stellenbosch and several other South African institutions have recently found evidence that MERS-CoV could possibly originate from bats occurring in southern Africa. The South African scientists, headed by Prof. Wolfgang Preiser, tested faecal material from a total of 62 bats from 13 different species for coronaviruses. In collaboration with their colleagues in Bonn, headed by Dr. Jan Felix Drexler, they investigated the genetic material of the viruses that they found.
In a faecal sample from a bat of the species Neoromicia cf. zuluensis they found a virus that is genetically more closely related to MERS-CoV than any other known virus. They believe that MERS-CoV may originally come from bats and may have reached the human population via other animals acting as intermediate hosts.
Search for MERS-CoV progenitor should include Africa
