USA - Illinois man, contact of Indiana case - test negative for coronavirus MERS in follow-up tests after initial sero-positive results

[sharon sanders]

Re: USA - Illinois man, contact of Indiana case - test negative for coronavirus MERS in follow-up tests after initial sero-positive results

I have removed this person from our coronavirus case list. He joins 4 other test reversals: 2 in Spain and 2 in Italy.

 

[Emily]

Re: USA - Illinois man, contact of Indiana case - test negative for coronavirus MERS in follow-up tests after initial sero-positive results

Thanks for the update on the other reversals, (or 'false positives' as the news story I heard on the radio today referred to the Illinois non-case).

A Saudi immunologist on Twitter said that exposure to pets might give false MERS-CoV positives on serology. It makes sense since cats and dogs do get coronavirus infections. Even their live vaccines might be conferring some immunity, or at least seropositivity.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15019110
http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/37/3/407.full
http://www.wormsandgermsblog.com/20...tella-pneumonia-in-a-person-from-dog-vaccine/

There is some good info here from CDC's Dr. David Swerdlow about the general technical challenges of serology:

http://www.livescience.com/45922-illinois-man-didnt-have-mers.html

3rd Case of MERS in US Was False Alarm, CDC Says
By Bahar Gholipour, Staff Writer | May 28, 2014 01:00pm ET

 

[gsgs]

Re: USA - Illinois man, contact of Indiana case - test negative for coronavirus MERS in follow-up tests after initial sero-positive results

hopefully one day they'll give probability estimates instead
of word formulations ...

serology is not an exact science, I read
(about the old samples from 1947,1957,1968 when it was the standard)

 

[Emily]

Re: USA - Illinois man, contact of Indiana case - test negative for coronavirus MERS in follow-up tests after initial sero-positive results

I hope so, too, gsgs. Infectious disease terrifies people like no other threat - and we have a large segment of the population who are immune compromised in some way, or without access to good healthcare and are especially frightened. Additional stress is not healthy for those people.

But CDC did the right thing in logistically managing risk until confirmation.

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: USA - Illinois man, contact of Indiana case - test negative for coronavirus MERS in follow-up tests after initial sero-positive results

May 29, 2014

CDC says handshake didn't spread MERS to Illinois man

(AP) ? Health officials on Wednesday backtracked on an earlier report that a mysterious Middle East virus had apparently spread from one person to another in the United States.
...
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the revised diagnosis on Wednesday.
...
Asked if they had jumped the gun with the earlier announcement, one official said the CDC will continue to err on the side of caution if it might stop potential spread of a dangerous new disease. "We can't wait until we have all the tests back in order to take public health action," said Dr. David Swerdlow, who is managing the CDC's response to the recent MERS reports.

It's not clear what caused the earlier false positive test results. It's possible the tests reacted to the antigen for a virus with similarities to MERS, officials said.

Health officials were relieved to get the new results. They had believed the virus must have spread from the Indiana man to the Illinois man during a business meeting that involved no closer contact than a handshake. That suggested it might spread a little easier than some had thought ? in the Middle East, the virus has spread more intimately, to family members or health care workers caring for a MERS patient.

CDC officials said they still think it's possible the virus can spread in an extended, face-to-face business meeting. But "it is a little reassuring that this gentleman is not a case," Swerdlow said.
...
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/arti...s-handshake-didnt-spread-mers-to-illinois-man