๐ Countrywide Survey for MERS-Coronavirus Antibodies in Dromedaries and Humans in Pakistan
ยฉ 2018, Wuhan Institute of Virology, CAS and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a zoonotic pathogen capable of causing severe respiratory disease in humans. Although dromedary camels are considered as a major reservoir host, the MERS-CoV infection dynamics in camels are not fully understood. Through surveillance in Pakistan, nasal (n = 776) and serum (n = 1050) samples were collected from camels between November 2015 and February 2018. Samples were collected from animal markets, free-roaming herds and abattoirs. An in-house ELISA was developed to detect IgG against MERS-CoV. A total of 794 camels were found seropositive for MERS-CoV. Prevalence increased with the age and the highest seroprevalence was recorded in camels aged > 10 years (81.37%) followed by those aged 3.1โ10 years (78.65%) and โค 3 years (58.19%). Higher prevalence was observed in female (78.13%) as compared to male (70.70%). Of the camel nasal swabs, 22 were found to be positive by RT-qPCR though with high Ct values. Moreover, 2,409 human serum samples were also collected from four provinces of Pakistan during 2016โ2017. Among the sampled population, 840 humans were camel herders. Although we found a high rate of MERS-CoV antibody positive dromedaries (75.62%) in Pakistan, no neutralizing antibodies were detected in humans with and without contact to camels.
keywords
๐ serum samples (106)
๐ dromedary camels (70)
๐ neutralizing antibodies (122)
๐ nasal swab (58)
author
๐ค Zohaib, Ali
๐ค Saqib, Muhammad
๐ค Athar, Muhammad Ammar
๐ค Chen, Jing
๐ค Sial, Awais ur Rahman
๐ค Khan, Saeed
๐ค Taj, Zeeshan
๐ค Sadia, Halima
๐ค Tahir, Usman
๐ค Tayyab, Muhammad Haleem
๐ค Qureshi, Muhammad Asif
๐ค Mansoor, Muhammad Khalid
๐ค Naeem, Muhammad Ahsan
๐ค Hu, Bing Jie
๐ค Khan, Bilal Ahmed
๐ค Ujjan, Ikram Din
๐ค Li, Bei
๐ค Zhang, Wei
๐ค Luo, Yun
๐ค Zhu, Yan
๐ค Waruhiu, Cecilia
๐ค Khan, Iahtasham
๐ค Yang, Xing Lou
๐ค Sajid, Muhammad Sohail
๐ค Corman, Victor Max
๐ค Yan, Bing
๐ค Shi, Zheng Li
year
โฐ 2018
journal
๐ Virologica Sinica
issn
๐ 1995820X 16740769
volume
33
number
5
page
410-417
citedbycount
7
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