Via The Province, a report by Helen Branswell of The Canadian Press: Camels test positive for MERS; from Qatari farm where 2 men fell ill. Excerpt:
Health officials in Qatar have announced they have found MERS or a MERS-like virus in three camels.
The camels were from a single farm where two men also contracted the virus.
The finding provides further evidence that camels can at the very least be infected with MERS or a very similar virus.
But it does not prove camels are driving the outbreak of the new coronavirus, which is a cousin of the virus that caused the 2003 SARS outbreak.
Recently officials from Saudi Arabia also reported a similar finding from a single camel in that country.
The World Health Organization has confirmed 160 infections with the new virus, all in or linked to six countries in the Middle East.
"This is our first clue which further fills out the whole story," says Bart Haagmans, a Dutch virologist who is involved in the effort to test the camel specimens.
"But there's more work to do, especially on routes of transmission."
Haagmans, who is with Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, says the team believes the findings are solid. They used three different tests, and found multiple fragments of viral RNA.
As well, the camels have developed antibodies to MERS, or a MERS-like virus, he says. Sequencing of that material is ongoing.
