The battle against SARS and MERS coronaviruses: Reservoirs and Animal Models

Gong, Shu-ran; Bao, Lin-lin

MERS-CoV RNA was found in a camel lymph node in Qatar. 19 This finding indicates that MERS-CoV may be maintained in camel organs or muscles. If that speculation proves true, the convention in the Middle East of cooking and trading camel meat and organs might be the interspecies transmission route. MERS-CoV can also survive longer in camel milk than in other ruminant milk. In addition to the above two routes, MERS-CoV RNA can be detected in 59% of nasal discharge and 15% of feces in camels. Thus, there is supportive evidence for the three postulated transmission routes, but further verification is needed to confirm them. It should also be noted that MERS is a type of infectious respiratory disease, and therefore, in addition to the above three possible transmission routes, infection via aerosols produced by camels should be considered.