The dromedary is the animal reservoir of the new coronavirus MERS-CoV, responsible for 46 deaths in one year in the Arabian Peninsula.
According to a Dutch study published today in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, camels in the Sultanate of Oman show antibodies to the new coronavirus MERS-CoV for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome CoronaVirus. They could therefore be the piece of the puzzle that has been missing so far, namely the reservoir animal at the origin of the human epidemic.
Due to the kinship of the new coronavirus with SARS, researchers suspect the bat to be the animal causing the disease. The dromedary, a very popular animal in the Middle East, used as a racing animal as well as for its milk and meat, could therefore have been the intermediary between the bat and the man.
According to this work, 100% of the 50 blood sera collected from camels in the Sultanate of Oman contained antibodies specifically directed against the surface proteins of the coronavirus. And this was also the case for 15% of the sera collected from Spanish dromedaries. On the other hand, no traces of the coronavirus in the other animals in which the researchers were interested: goats, sheep, cows … They conclude that MERS-CoV or a virus very close to it has already infected these dromedaries.
It remains to understand the mode of transmission of the coronavirus from the dromedary to humans: by contact, through camel’s milk … Until now, the MERS-CoV virus has mainly infected elderly men weakened by a chronic disease. The World Health Organization considers that it presents a very low pandemic risk due to its low human-to-human transmissibility.
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