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South Korean MERS outbreak spotlights lack of research
How Middle East respiratory syndrome jumps from animals to humans remains a puzzle.
Declan Butler
09 June 2015
The world is watching South Korea as the latest outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) unfolds. But how exactly the virus jumps to humans in the first place is still unknown, and clues to that puzzle lie thousands of kilometres away.
The cluster of hospital-associated cases in South Korea ? the largest MERS outbreak outside the Middle East ? has so far killed 7 people and infected 95, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Hundreds of schools have been shut. Although the causal coronavirus, MERS-CoV, is considered a potential pandemic threat, specialists told Nature that they expect authorities to quickly bring this outbreak under control.
A much bigger challenge than emergency response, they say, is how to stop MERS being transmitted from animals to people in the Middle East, where it is endemic in camels. ?The focus on South Korea would be better directed towards Saudi Arabia,? says David Heymann, a researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and chair of Public Health England, to stop the cases that continue to spark new outbreaks at the source.
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How Middle East respiratory syndrome jumps from animals to humans remains a puzzle.
Declan Butler
09 June 2015
The world is watching South Korea as the latest outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) unfolds. But how exactly the virus jumps to humans in the first place is still unknown, and clues to that puzzle lie thousands of kilometres away.
The cluster of hospital-associated cases in South Korea ? the largest MERS outbreak outside the Middle East ? has so far killed 7 people and infected 95, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Hundreds of schools have been shut. Although the causal coronavirus, MERS-CoV, is considered a potential pandemic threat, specialists told Nature that they expect authorities to quickly bring this outbreak under control.
A much bigger challenge than emergency response, they say, is how to stop MERS being transmitted from animals to people in the Middle East, where it is endemic in camels. ?The focus on South Korea would be better directed towards Saudi Arabia,? says David Heymann, a researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and chair of Public Health England, to stop the cases that continue to spark new outbreaks at the source.
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