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MERS was found in camels 20 years ago
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Scientists say the mysterious MERS virus has been infecting camels in Saudi Arabia for at least two decades, and early human cases probably went undiagnosed.
Since the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus was first identified in 2012, doctors have struggled to explain how many patients have fallen sick. MERS can cause symptoms including fever, breathing problems and kidney failure.
To date, it has infected more than 180 people and killed 79, mostly in the Middle East, though infections have also spread to Europe and northern Africa.
The virus is related to SARS, which killed about 800 people in a 2003 outbreak.
In a new paper, researchers took archived blood samples dating back to 1992 from more than 260 camels in Saudi Arabia. They found traces of MERS or a similar virus in samples from the early 1990s to 2010.
They also analyzed random samples from 200 camels, 36 goats and 112 sheep taken in Saudi Arabia last year. Of those, nearly 75 percent of the camels had antibodies to MERS. The researchers found genetic sequences of MERS from camels matched those in humans.
“It’s very plausible that camels are infecting humans, but this study still doesn’t tell us exactly how that is happening,” said a spokesman for the World Health Organization, which wasn’t involved in the study.
Ian Lipkin of Columbia University, who led the research, said MERS appears to have stayed stable since 1992 and guessed that some human cases went unnoticed as it is rare and hard to spot.
“There are definitely ways to reduce your risk,” he said. “I would try to avoid kissing camels” — a practice among some who race the animals or keep them as pets.
The paper was published online in mBio.
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