...are not at all part of the thinking judging by the imagery in this story on alRiyadh.For a virus that kills 2 in 5 symptomatic people and for which animal hosts or intermediate hosts remain to be excluded or confirmed, there is an alarming and completely irresponsible level of safety being employed by those workers.Thanks to FluTrackers for bringing it to...
Cute little hedgehogs get CoVs too?
Corman and colleagues from the University of Bonn Medical Centre (clearly not just for human medicine!) have found a proposed new species of coronavirus (CoV) they've assigned to the Genus Betacoronavirus clade C. The new virus is called erinaceus CoV (EriCoV). It inhabits the same clade that houses the MERS-CoV, but it is not as closely related as are batCoVs and MERS-CoV.The authors, writing...
A summary of Influenza A(H7N9) virus findings in birds and humans [UPDATED, AMENDED FIGURE]
An article from Bloomberg news highlights some interesting studies, how they present opposing conclusions and why we can expect to see more H7N9 activity, perhaps peaking at Chinese New Year.Click on image to enlarge.H7N9-positive birds and humans (see MOA report) in April...
Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus: how tough is it?
Slide tweeted by @HZowawi captured from my talk on H7N9and MERS-CoV presented at the Royal Children's Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland, to the local Serology/Virology & Molecular Special Interest Group of the Australian Society of Micorbiology. 15th October, 2013.This publication is nearly...
Influenza A(H7N9) virus case appears in Zhejiang province....
Look I know hypotheses are there to be disproved but did this one have to be shot down in flames 60-minutes after I said at a talk today, "...perhaps the very quick and large scale bird cullings and the live bird market closures actually eliminated the particular H7N9 that was spreading through humans in South East China earlier in the year. Perhaps even reaching far enough back to...
The Hajj begins
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia showing the major sites of MERS-CoV infections and the site of Mecca.Al Riyadh reports that on Saturday and Sunday 13th the 1,379,000 international pilgrims (94% arriving by air) moved into Mina Valley from the holy city of Mecca (Makkah) located in the Mecca province, the...
