Hakim Djaballah, CEO of Institut Pasteur Korea: I suspect that MERS has adapted here,? ?Spread is very unusual and the level of contagion is very hi

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FORBES ASIA 6/05/2015 @ 4:22AM

Deadly MERS Virus Spreads Anxiety In South Korea, Evokes Memories Of SARS Epidemic

Donald Kirk
Contributor
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Fear of the unknown adds to the anxiety. ?There is no treatment for MERS,? said Hakim Djaballah, CEO of Institut Pasteur Korea, in an interview with the Korea Times. ?Since it is relatively a new virus, little drug discovery research has been done on it.?

Mr. Djaballah called on the Korean health ministry to conduct tests to determine if the disease was the same as that diagnosed in Saudi Arabia or if it had mutated into a somewhat different form.

?I suspect that the virus has adapted here,? Mr. Djaballah was quoted as saying. ?Spread is very unusual and the level of contagion is very high.? It was ?important,? he said, ?to have the information on patient zero? ? the first Korean to contract the disease ? to see if it was ?propagating randomly or through specific people related to patient zero and hospital caregivers.?

The World Health Organization said there was ?no evidence of sustained transmission? but was sending a team of epidemiologists to Korea to check on possible mutation of the original MERS virus and to recommend what to do about it.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/donaldk...-in-s-korea-evokes-memories-of-sars-epidemic/

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South Korea reports fourth death from Mers as Seoul declares 'war on virus'

WHO team set to visit country amid concerns that the virus has mutated - shown a 'slightly different' pattern from the one detected in Middle East

PUBLISHED : Friday, 05 June, 2015, 11:04am
UPDATED : Friday, 05 June, 2015, 11:09am
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A health ministry statement said a WHO team would visit next week, citing concerns that the virus has been showing a ?slightly different? pattern from the one detected in Middle East.

?We have yet to determine whether there has been any mutation,? said Choi Bo-yul, the head of a civilian task force set up to help with the outbreak.
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http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-...ts-fourth-death-mers-seoul-declares-war-virus

 

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Posted : 2015-06-02 16:51
Updated : 2015-06-02 22:08

`MERS gets out of hand'

Mutation of virus likely so search for cure should start now: expert

By Jung Min-ho

Given its unusually high infection and relative fatality rates, it is likely that the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus has mutated in Korea, an infectious disease expert said Tuesday.

"I suspect that the virus has adapted here. Spread is very unusual and the level of contagion is very high," Insitut Pasteur Korea CEO Hakim Djaballah told The Korea Times.

"But it isn't clear yet because we don't have any sequence information from the man who visited the Middle East."

Djaballah urged Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare to start genetically sequencing the virus found here immediately, which he believes will be vital in slowing down progression of the deadly disease and ultimately developing drugs to treat it.

Sequencing the virus will help the ministry figure out whether it is closely related to the one found in Saudi Arabia, where Korea's first MERS patient visited in April, he said.

"It would provide evidence if it is the same species infecting people in Korea or if it has evolved through mutation," he said. "It is also important to have the information on patient zero as a means to track how the infections are propagating ? randomly or through specific people related to patient zero and hospital care givers."
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http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2015/06/116_180045.html

 

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Translation Google

Unusually rapid propagation, tertiary infection, "the emergence Homers variants?" Sense of touch

2015-06-05 16:16:25
◆ ◆ Emergency Homers

Fashion being 'Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Homers)' domestic interested ssolrigo a variant possibilities. Experts are of very high disseminative Homers occurred in the country and noted the potential variants appear to tertiary infections.

Once the expert opinions are staggered. Compared to the past and the Middle East, the outbreak of infectious cases with a heightened whether it can be described as a variant of the appearance, but in fact there are different interpretations come out.

The government had to announce whether the five-day Homers virus strains mirwotda the announcement ot need comparative assessment with other agencies.

Department of Health and Human Services has three kinds of government offices briefing in the afternoon Homers virus mutation to the question said, "to be compared with the other agencies will be announced in the near future." Human Services' National Institutes of Health are now also going to finish the analysis. "" The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Netherlands Erasmus after tough because it should proceed with the resulting comparisons and hospital will announce, "he said.

Generally, it takes 4-5 days to genetic analysis, considering the time to send virus samples to foreign institutions whether variants're spake 2-3 weeks Cheers.Bask away seems to be revealed. Shem is the government's initial response procrastination is affecting even confirm whether variants.

This variant sequence analysis alone can not build the final happened. Just clipped the first step to find out the variety. It means a nucleotide sequence that lies in the gene of the nucleotide sequence is the basic unit of life. Adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine or the like varies depending on whether the protein base What's the array. Thus genome sequencing is the first step to find out whether or not the virus strains.

Mer seuneun the virus genetic information is composed of ribonucleic acid (RNA), not DNA. Since the flu virus epidemic was past the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), avian influenza (AI), Ebola virus, all human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, etc. The RNA viruses. The most important feature of RNA viruses is that mutations occur frequently in the course of their replication.

Songdaeseop Korea University Pharmacy Professor "RNA viruses are variants of this probability is significantly higher than DNA," he explained. The reason is difficult to develop a vaccine or therapeutic RNA viruses, because this also. If the virus has a specific protein in a human cell is made of a material block and the portion which can be coupled and deformation occurs in the therapeutic effect disappears.

However, it is difficult to build conclude that the difference is caused by the virus genome sequence variants that emerge. The story has caused strains in academia do if you experience a significant change in viral infectivity or virulence than the previous.

Professor Song "should make sure to add any change is causing changes in the protein sequences of the virus," said "since there will need to figure out how it affects the virulence and infectivity of the protein in the host," he said.

If the nucleotide sequence is changed to change the surface protein of the virus, the protein may be a variant in the direction saenggyeotdago infectivity is increased if you have a better ability to bind to human cells. Compare with other international organizations, it is why the virus samples must be analyzed. The situation was only worrying yireondedo government to send more than two weeks the virus in some organs.

In fact, porcine epidemic diarrhea was popular in the past, Asia (PED) virus that causes a variation to the United States in 2013 10 million pigs had caused this event to our company. The genome sequence but a change of about 8% was found to be a significant change in proteins associated with virulence. Typically, the nucleotide sequence is different from 5% sees this byeonjongil high probability.

Currently around the world expert opinion on Homers outbreak in South Korea it is mixed.

Hakim bellows Institut Pasteur Korea journals chapter 'Science' while the interview "seems to be rampant mutations to occur," he said.
However, Cristian Rodrigo German stent main body "Dr. Merck's seuneun have corrected the enzyme Unlike other RNA virus genome is small change according to the time change," he said.

Some point out that the first infected person may hold the key out for this part. Mr. A was infected first visit to Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, camel and had not had contact at all. Science is added that "if the infectious agent of the first patient for a camel Korea is battling with a new virus."

[Wonhoseop News]

http://vip.mk.co.kr/news/view/21/20/1286848.html

 

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Did poor ventilation lead to MERS 'superspread' in Korea?

By Kai Kupferschmidt 5 June 2015 5:00 pm

...KCDC finished its sequencing of the MERS virus causing the current outbreak and just today shared it with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A spokesperson says it will release the sequence publicly tomorrow.

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http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2015/06/did-poor-ventilation-lead-mers-superspread-korea

 

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Mers inspections tightened at Hong Kong airport as Leung Chun-ying calls on Seoul to be more forthcoming

Emily Tsang and Elizabeth Cheung
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 06 June, 2015, 5:12am
UPDATED : Saturday, 06 June, 2015, 5:12am

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In another development, Beijing announced it had completed genome sequencing of samples from the South Korean Mers patient in a hospital in Huizhou in Guangdong. It reported that the virus had not mutated.

The sequencing was completed by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in cooperation with the Guangdong health department.
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http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...inspections-tightened-hong-kong-airport-leung

 

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2nd LD) S. Korea reports 9 additional MERS cases, raising total to 50
2015/06/06 14:23
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Meanwhile, the health ministry said that the MERS virus spreading in South Korea has not mutated and showed similar genomic sequences with the contagion discovered in Middle Eastern countries.

The fast pace of MERS proliferation in South Korea has raised questions among foreign experts about whether the virus has undergone changes that could make it more infectious.

"The Korea National Institute of Health (KNIH) brought in such results after doing a culture test on the MERS virus gathered from a local patient and analyzing its full genomic sequence," said the ministry in a press briefing.

The KNIH did the joint research with a local virology society, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other foreign institutions to find out whether a gene mutation happened in South Korea.

The ministry said the virus from the South Korean patient had a 99.55 percent similarity with a virus sample from a Saudi Arabian stored by the U.S. National Institute of Health in 2012.

"South Korea's weather is more favorable for the survival of the MERS virus than in the Middle East," said an official from the ministry. "In terms of virology, the virus here is the same."

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2015/06/06/0200000000AEN20150606000452320.html