I'm little slow on this day old story. Jordan was the site of the first MERS-CoV cases, confirmed retrospectively by NAMRU-3 (see MERS page; Cluster #1). The US CDC has been sent 124 samples by the Jordan Ministry of Health from around that time to help further investigate the source of the (as far as we know) first outbreak. The 2 cases that had been confirmed were healthcare workers, including...
Moroccan MERS?
ProMED says a news report has been confirmed by the head of the Moroccan Health Defense Network. However, FluTrackers has a report that this has been denied by the Moroccan Health Ministry and that samples from the UAE national showing relevant clinical features, were negative for MERS-C...
Poultry workers had no prior exposure to H7N9 [UPDATED]
Bai and colleagues report in NEJM that 1,544 samples collected from young adult poultry workers between Jan-Nov 2012 in 4 key provinces/municipalities of China (municipality of Shanghai, Zhejiang province, Jiangsu province and Anhui province) were tested using a haemagglutinin-inhibition (HAI) assay and a microneutralization (MN) assay. The HAI assay found some weak reactivity (antibody...
Nothing unusual about MTAs-are commenters just confused?
Material transfer agreements are more the norm than the exception among scientist used to local an d international collaborations whether working with exotic new viruses - or endemic seasonal viruses from the recent or distant past. An article in Science's ScienceInsider goes into more detail about the recent fracas. Perhaps some just don't understand the difference between MTAs, IP, business...
5 new MERS-CoV cases come from nowhere.
The Saudi Ministry of Health effusive detail below.. Within the framework of the epidemiological surveillance of the novel Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), the Ministry of Health (MOH) has announced that five novel Coronavirus cases have been recorded among citizens in the Eastern Region, ranging in age from 73 to 85 years, but they have all chronic diseases. That's not an excerpt. That's all of it. Even Coulson...
Imported French MERS case dies.
Reuters reports that the 65M who contracted MERS-CoV while travelling in Dubai has died. He shared a room with a 50M who subsequently contracted the virus and remains in hospital. With the new case above, the case fatality rate sits to 4...
H7N9 in Beijing.
Busy night. According to crofsblogs and Avian Flu Diary, Beijing has reported a new case of H7N9 in a 6M, confirmed 28.05.13. This makes 133 cases and 37 deaths-3 in Beijing when including an asymptomatic lab confirmation.This case comes after Beijing rolled H7N9 into its normal influenza virus laboratory testing system and one of China's leading respiratory virus researchers noted the need to...
H7N9: airborne transmission not at pandemic levels - infects upper & lower airways, lymph nodes and brain in ferrets.
In a collaborative effort published last week in Science, researchers from China, Canada and the US infected ferrets with a human H7N9 isolate (A/Shanghai/2/2013; "SH2"). The aim was to understand infection, transmission and pathogenicity due to the virus in the main mammalian model for such studies.Ferrets showed upper respiratory tract disease, similar to that due to influenza A(H1N1)pdm 2009 virus...
No new H7N9 cases for 2nd week.
Self explanatory., There was on death in the week spanning 20.05 to 27.05. 76 cases have recovered now and 37 died. The numbers I'm able to update (once again there are not details) are on the H7N9 pa...
EV-A71 in cases of Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP), Australia.
ProMED describes a report from researchers at the Australian National Enterovirus Reference Laboratory on 5 cases of AFP positive for EV-A71 between Jan-May 2013. The viruses, found in stool samples from ill children, were identified as belonging to the more virulent genogroup, C4a, by VP1 sequencing.Members of genogroup C4 were described by van der Sanden and colleagues as being restricted to epidemics...
Questions about MERS, MTAs and mistakes.
Edited by Dr. Katherine E. ArdenThis is a story that stretches back to June 2012-nearly 12 months ago. That's when virologist Prof Ali Mohamed Zaki reportedly notified (or not, depending on the article) the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health about a fatal case of severe acute respiratory infection in a 60-year old man for which the standard laboratory tests yielded no answers. He sent a sample to researchers...
