A German-Dutch team has succeeded in immunizing dromedaries against the MERS virus. Even though its lethality is relatively low, as well as its spread, an outbreak of MERS becomes increasingly probable due to the ease in which people can contract it while in the vicinity of camels or dromedaries. Fortunately, a recently discovered MERS vaccine for camels might lead to human vaccines as well, meaning that the disease will eventually be completely quelled.
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Vaccinating camels against the virus might reduce its spread from camels to humans, the researchers wrote in their study.
The MERS camel vaccine was then tested on four of eight camels where the rest were given a placebo before they were all given the actual virus.
The findings of the research were published on Friday in the journal Science.
Hope may be in sight for a viable vaccine against the deadly Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). In cooperation with researchers based at Philipps University in Marburg and the team in Rotterdam, he introduced a gene for the so-called spike protein of MERS into the genome of a weakened strain of poxvirus (MVA). Scientists from Europe have genetically modified a version of the vaccine for smallpox to show Mers virus protein on its surface.
The overall infection rate of the MERS virus among this sample was 12 percent with a peak during the winter season, December 2014 to January 2015, at 21 to 23 percent, said the study, led by Professor Yi Guan and Assistant Professor Huachen Zhu at the University of Hong Kong, in collaboration with King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia; and scientists from Mainland China, Australia and Egypt. More than a third of reported infections have resulted in death.
Dromedaries and other camels act as reservoirs for MERS-CoV, a coronavirus that lodges in their upper respiratory tracts: nose, larynx, pharynx and trachea.
More importantly is the effort to create a vaccine for humans which according to some experts, is a lot harder to do. On using the orthopoxvirus Vaccinia Virus Ankara as a vector, this virus is able to induce cross-protection, so that, on generating specific MVA antibodies, the latter can also neutralise camelpox, another orthopoxvirus that frequently affects dromedaries and other camels, causing generalised infections and skin lesions.
In light of recent outbreaks of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), two studies provide new insights into this life-threatening pathogen, with the first identifying five different lineages of the virus that have circulated between humans and camels, and the second evaluating a MERS-CoV vaccine for camels that could work as a preemptive measure to reduce the pathogen’s spread. The camel vaccine study is important, because it shows in principle that a camel vaccine can be found, Osterholm added.
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There are no treatments for MERS but scientists are trying to develop an effective vaccine. Sutter’s group. In addition, anti-MERS antibodies were detected in both the nasal mucosa and in the bloodstream of immunized animals. Only the control animals developed cold-like signs, with increased nasal mucus secretion. The level of protection in MERS-Cov vaccinated camels correlated with levels of neutralizing antibodies they harbored.
