Study finds promising experimental MERS vaccine

An experimental vaccine for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) showed promising results in animal testing, sparking an immune system response that could lead to a vaccine for people, researchers said Tuesday.

Currently there are no licensed vaccines for MERS, which first appeared in 2012 and has caused numerous scares including a recent deadly outbreak in South Korea.

Vaccinated mice produced antibodies that neutralized MERS strains, according to a study from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The vaccines that caused the largest immune responses in mice were then administered to monkeys.

The monkeys were protected from a serious lung infection characteristic of MERS when given the experimental vaccines and then exposed to a version of the virus, the study said.

The study with the promising findings was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers are now working on versions of the vaccine that could be tested in clinical trials for humans.

The MERS outbreak in South Korea in May infected some 180 people, killing 36. The World Health Organization has identified 1,368 cases since 2012 including 490 deaths, most of them in Saudi Arabia. — Agence France-Presse

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South Korea cuts rates as MERS clouds outlook; 10th patient dies

SEOUL - A deadly outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) forced South Korea to cut interest rates on Thursday in the hope of softening the blow to an economy already beset by slack demand, as authorities reported 14 new cases and a 10th fatality.

Worry about the disease has been reflected across the region with dozens of suspected cases being tested in Hong Kong, though none confirmed, and many thousands of people cancelling trips to South Korea.

The outbreak, with 122 cases and 10 deaths, is the largest outside Saudi Arabia and began last month when a 68-year-old South Korean businessman brought the disease back from a trip to the Middle East.

He was diagnosed with MERS on May 20, and all subsequent infections have been traced to him and happened in health facilities.

The 10th person to die was a 65-year-old terminal lung cancer patient whose condition deteriorated after testing positive for the MERS virus, South Korea's health ministry said.

President Park Geun-hye has put off a trip to the United States to deal with the outbreak as the total number of cases rises daily.

The central bank of Asia's fourth biggest economy said it had to act and cut its policy rate by 25 basis points to a record-low 1.50 percent.

"We decided to cut rates today in a pre-emptive move to contain the economic fallout from MERS," Bank of Korea Governor Lee Ju-yeol told a media briefing.

Policymakers were already under pressure to stimulate the economy as weak global demand and a strong won have dented exports and discouraged spending by consumers and companies.

One positive sign was a decline in the number of South Korea's schools and universities that have closed.

The total dipped to 2,622 on Thursday from about 2,700 the previous day after a joint team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) and South Korea recommended that schools be reopened as they were unlikely to spread the disease.

Some schools were set to reopen on Monday as the province of Gyeonggi, which surrounds the capital, said it would call off an advisory to suspend classes.

"We all need to put behind us excessive fear and psychological withdrawal over MERS and try to go back to normal daily lives next week so we can minimise the impact on the economy," Kim Moo-sung, who heads the ruling Saenuri party, said at a party meeting.

Hong Kong alert

MERS was first identified in humans in 2012. Most of the global cases, which number 1,271 according to WHO data and at least 448 related deaths, have been in the Middle East.

But memories are fresh in Asia of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which emerged in 2002-2003 and killed about 800 people worldwide.

MERS is caused by a coronavirus from the same family as the one that caused SARS. It is more deadly than SARS but does not spread as easily, at least for now.

Its symptoms include fever and a cough.

In Hong Kong, a clinic said it was testing two people who had both recently travelled to South Korea. Thirty-one people in Hong Kong who suspected they might have caught the disease have tested negative.

Hong Kong issued a "red alert" advisory on Tuesday against non-essential travel to South Korea, while Singapore Airlines said it would waive fees for customers who want to cancel or re-book flights to South Korea.

Despite the fears, only one case has been reported outside South Korea in the current outbreak, that of a South Korean man who travelled to China via Hong Kong after defying a suggestion from health authorities that he stay in voluntary quarantine at home.

China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention said the country was fully capable of containing any outbreak.

"There is no need to panic," the Xinhua news agency quoted the centre's deputy head, Feng Zijian, as saying.

Among the new South Korean cases was a pregnant woman who contracted the virus in an emergency ward that has been linked to other confirmed cases, the health ministry said.

The woman's pregnancy would limit the scope of treatment available, but she was in stable condition, the ministry said. The woman's parents had previously tested positive for MERS.

Another new patient was a police officer in the city of Pyeongtaek, where dozens of infections occurred, all linked to the first patient.

Three more patients were discharged, the health ministry said on Thursday, taking the total number of patients recovered in the outbreak to seven. — Reuters

MERS death toll in Saudi climbs to 107

RIYADH - Saudi health authorities announced Saturday two new deaths from the MERS coronavirus, raising to 109 the number of fatalities since the disease appeared in the kingdom in September 2012.

A 25-year-old man has died in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah and a woman of 69, who suffered from tuberculosis and anemia, died in Mecca, also western Saudi Arabia, the health ministry said.

At the same time, 35 new cases of the severe respiratory disease have been recorded, raising the number of sufferers in the Gulf state over the past two years to 396, the world's highest tally.

On Friday, US health officials said the first case of MERS has been confirmed in the United States.

The person infected with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a health care provider who had traveled to Riyadh for work, they said.

And last week, Egypt recorded its first infection after a person who arrived from Saudi Arabia tested positive.

Public concern in Saudi Arabia over the spread of MERS has mounted after the resignation of at least four doctors at Jeddah's King Fahd Hospital who refused to treat patients for fear of infection.

Some research has suggested that camels are a likely source of the virus.

MERS is considered a deadlier but less-transmissible cousin of the SARS virus that erupted in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, nine percent of whom died.

There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments for MERS, a disease with a mortality rate of more than 40 percent that experts are still struggling to understand. — Agence France–Presse

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Saudi Arabia announces jump in new cases of deadly MERS virus

RIYADH - Saudi Arabia confirmed 20 new cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) on Saturday and Sunday, adding up to 49 infections in six days, a sudden increase of a disease that kills about a third of the people infected and has no cure.

MERS, a SARS-like novel coronavirus that emerged in Saudi Arabia two years ago, has infected 244 people in the kingdom, of whom 76 have died, the Health Ministry said on its website.

However, Health Minister Abdullah al-Rabia on Sunday told reporters there was no scientific evidence yet to justify ordering additional preventative measures such as travel restrictions.

He said he did not know why there had been a surge of cases in Jeddah but said it might be part of a seasonal pattern since there was also a big rise in infections last April and May.

Another cluster of cases has been detected in the United Arab Emirates and a Malaysian who was recently in the Gulf has been confirmed as infected, his country said.

MERS has no vaccine or anti-viral treatment, but international and Saudi health authorities say the disease, which originated in camels, does not transmit easily between people and may simply die out.

Health experts have warned, however, that MERS has the potential to mutate eventually.

The number of officially confirmed Saudi cases has jumped suddenly over the past two weeks.

Saudi authorities last week issued several statements aimed at reassuring the public that there was no immediate cause for concern at the latest outbreak and that it had not met international definitions of an epidemic.

Rabia said the ministry had invited five European and North American companies to work with it in developing a vaccine and that some of the companies would soon visit the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, is expected to receive a surge of pilgrims in July during the faith's annual fasting month of Ramadan, followed by millions more in early October for the Haj.

New infections

Last week Malaysian health authorities said a Malaysian citizen had been confirmed as having the disease after he returned from pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

Rumours of unreported cases have circulated on Saudi social media feeds in recent weeks. Last week, the kingdom's cabinet asked Saudi news organisations to report only those cases that are officially confirmed by the Health Ministry.

Most of the new infections are in Saudi Arabia's port city of Jeddah, where 37 people have been infected since Monday, seven of them fatally. Another 10 new cases, one of them fatal so far, were discovered in the capital Riyadh. There were also new cases confirmed in Najran Province and the city of Medina.

Last week, another cluster of cases was discovered in the neighbouring United Arab Emirates, and Yemen reported its first case.

Separately, the UAE state news agency WAM said late on Saturday that it had recorded 12 new cases of coronavirus infections that were discovered during "routine checks" on people who had come into contact with infected individuals.

WAM quoted the health authority as saying that the patients were being kept in hospital and "did not pose a danger to the public or to patients". It expected the patients to be rid of the MERS virus within 10 to 14 days. — Reuters

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MERS virus found in Qatar camels, linked to human spread

DOHA/LONDON - Scientists have found cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in camels in Qatar, health officials said on Thursday, fuelling speculation that camels might be the animal reservoir that allowed the virus to infect and kill humans.

The SARS-like coronavirus, which emerged in the Middle East last year and has killed almost 40 percent of the around 170 people so far infected, was found in three camels in a herd in a barn also linked to two human cases of MERS infection.

"The three camels were investigated among a herd of 14 camels, and the samples were collected as part of the epidemiological investigation," Qatar's Supreme Council of Health said in a statement.

It added that the two confirmed human cases linked to the barn had since recovered. Scientists around the world have been seeking to pin down the animal source of MERS virus infections since the first human cases were confirmed.

British researchers who conducted some of the very first genetic analyses on MERS last September said the virus, which is from the same family as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, was also related to a virus found in bats.

Confirming and commenting on the virus being found in camels in Qatar, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said there was still insufficient evidence to say for sure what the source of the human MERS infections was.

"Neither camels nor bats can yet be said to be reservoir of MERS," he said on the networking site Twitter.

Ab Osterhaus, a professor of virology at the Erasmus Medical Centre in The Netherlands that worked on the camel study, told Reuters the results were confirmed by a range of tests including sequencing and antibody testing.

Dutch scientists said in August they had found strong evidence that the MERS virus is widespread among one-humped dromedary camels in the Middle East - suggesting people who become infected may be catching it from camels used for meat, milk, transport and racing.

Saudi officials said this month that a camel there had tested positive for MERS a few days after its owner was confirmed to have the virus.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said in its latest MERS update on Nov. 22 that of the 176 laboratory-confirmed and probable reported human cases to date, 69 people had died.

Human cases of MERS, which can cause coughing, fever and pneumonia, have so far been reported in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Tunisia, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Britain.

Osterhaus, whose team worked with Qatar's Health and Environment Ministries on the study, said that, at this stage, "no more details can be disclosed" about the findings since a scientific paper was in the process of being prepared and submitted for peer review and publication.

The Qatari health council said, however, as a precaution, the elderly and people with underlying health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and respiratory illnesses should avoid any close animal contact when visiting farms and markets.  — Reuters

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