Case report: Detection of the Middle East respiratory syndrome corona virus (MERS-CoV) in nasal secretions of a dead human

Mahallawi, Waleed H.

A 26 years old female with a high temperature and severe cough was admitted to a hospital in the Western Province region in KSA. The woman was diagnosed with severe pneumonia and she was hospitalized, isolated, and given antibiotics and paracetamol. The woman got worse and died after two days from admission. After three days of investigations, a nasal swab had been taken for a molecular diagnostic panel of respiratory pathogens. The samples were transported to the laboratory using full precautions. A variety of laboratory molecular tests were performed including influenza A and B and MERS-CoV by RT-PCR. According to the laboratory, the samples were processed to extract the viral RNA using a fully automated machine (Roche MagNa Pure LC (RNA Viral isolation Kit; The MagNA Pure System, version 1.0)). Following that, the extracted RNA was loaded on a 96 well plate after preparation of the master mix and the addition of the internal controls (Tib Molbiol Primers and Probes with Roche Master Mix). Next, the plate was placed into the Light Cycler 480 (Roche) for the amplification and determination of the results. The laboratory report confirmed that the samples were positive for MERS-CoV.