Detection of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Genome in an Air Sample Originating from a Camel Barn Owned by an Infected Patient

Azhar, Esam I.; Hashem, Anwar M.; El-Kafrawy, Sherif A.; Sohrab, Sayed Sartaj; Aburizaiza, Asad S.; Farraj, Suha A.; Hassan, Ahmed M.; Al-Saeed, Muneera S.; Jamjoom, Ghazi A.; Madani, Tariq A.

MERS-CoV was reported to be more stable than influenza A H1N1 virus under different environmental conditions on surfaces or in aerosols (21) . Specifically, viable MERS-CoV was recovered from surfaces after 48 h at 20°C and 40% relative humidity and after 24 h at 30°C and 30% relative humidity. Similarly, the viability of MERS-CoV decreased by 7% only in aerosols when the virus was incubated at 20°C with 40% relative humidity. However, virus isolation in cell culture was unsuccessful from the air sample collected in the current study, which may be due to a loss of viral infectivity in the collected air sample. Therefore, further studies are clearly needed to confirm the viability of MERS-CoV at different environmental conditions and to confirm its infectivity. Nonetheless, while other routes of transmission, such as droplet contact or fomite transmission, may be involved, the detection of MERS-CoV RNA in the air sample from this barn concurrently with its detection and isolation from the infected camel and the onset of symptoms in the patient warrants further investigations for the possible airborne transmission of MERS-CoV.