Antibodies in 10-year old UAE camel sera suggestive, but not evidentiary, of the presence of MERS-CoV a decade ago

Click on image to enlarge. I've cobbled together a graphic of the assays that have come from Prof Christian Drosten group and colleagues, mostly for the detection andconfirmation of MERS-CoV in human samples.632 of 651 (97.1%) dromedary camel serum samples collected in 2003 and 2013 in...

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The weather in eastern China...

Just a random snippet form a paper I was skimming that helps us southern hemispherans get a grip on the seasons and weather elsewhere...Some studies have claimed that climatic factors, particularly temperature, have a clear impact on seasonal influenza outbreaks [34,35]. The weather in eastern China is very cold between December and January, and temperatures begin to...

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H7N9 median time between events: the story of average disease

Click on image to enlarge.From Clinical Findings in 111 Cases of Influenza A (H7N9) Virus Infection, Gao et al, Volume No 368, Page No. 2277-85. Copyright � (2013) Massachusetts Medical Society. Reprinted with permission from Massachusetts Medical Society.This is a supplementary figure...

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Keeping patient privacy to the fore...

Crawford Kilian (CK; with one "l") and Andrew Rambaut (AR) passed a couple of tweets a couple of evenings ago (my time), and I chipped in my 5c worth (inflation and all) at the time.I wasn't really meaning to be argumentative, my comment was asking, cynically, whether a suggestion to improve patient privacy suggested by AR would help unstopper the cork of oft-times incomplete and sometimes slow or...

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H9N2 confirmed in 86-year old Hong Kong citizen living in Guangdong province...

Influenza A(H9N2) virus, another "bird flu" but this usually causing mild signs and symptoms of infection, has been confirmed in an 86-year old man reported Dec-30.The man's underlying illnesses were added to by chills and productive cough from 28-Dec when he was admitted to hospital with a fever.Sputum tested positive for H9N2. Not sure if an upper respiratory sample was tested.He had no recent contact...

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Qatari camels clear coronavirus

The camel herd that was previously Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MES-CoV) RT-PCR-positive is no longer positive for viral RNA according to an OIE report (OIE=Office International des Epizooties; the world organisation for animal health).In there...

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Influenza A(H7N9) virus case accumulation for 2013...

Click on image to enlarge.Sure a full 12-months of H7N9 in humans hasn't passed yet, but 2013 is coming to a close. I have 148 H7N9 cases worldwide including deaths and the asymptomatic boy from Beijing who seems to still be off the official tallies for some reason. WHO have not had an official...

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What to watch for with human parechovirus (HPeV) infections...

With HPeV infections generally around during summer (see specific earlier story arising from cases in babies from New South Wales), it's well worth mirroring the advice form NSW health on what to look for. The full sources of this information can be visited at the pages listed below.A brief agglomeration of the information... HPeV (closely related to enteroviruses) has been detected in a...

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