MERS-coronavirus: From discovery to intervention

Widagdo, W.; Okba, Nisreen M.A.; Stalin Raj, V.; Haagmans, Bart L.

Given the fact that livestock animals, especially dromedary camels, can potentially transmit MERS-CoV to humans, preventive measures need to be applied to reduce the risk of zoonotic transmission. During the SARS outbreak, civet cats, which posed a risk of transmitting the virus to humans, were culled [87] , thus potentially contributing in limiting the outbreak. In case of MERS, vaccine based strategies have to be applied to reduce the transmission of the virus to humans. The MVAbased vaccine against MERS-CoV might be a suitable intervention strategy for this purpose. This vaccine has been shown to induce neutralizing antibodies and significantly reduce MERS-CoV shedding in camels [76] . This vaccination strategy may especially be applied to young dromedary calves at 5-6 months post-parturition, when they lose their maternal antibodies [88] . Further studies should also address whether this vaccine is able to provide protection on the long term. The fact that this vaccine may provide additional protection against camelpox virus, another pox virus that could cause severe disease in camels, should be taken into account when evaluating the cost-effectiveness of this vaccine [76] .