Esam I Azhar, Sherif A El-Kafrawy, Suha A Farraj, Ahmed M Hassan, Muneera S Al-Saeed, Anwar M Hashem, Tariq A Madani
We describe the isolation and sequencing of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) obtained from a dromedary camel and from a patient who died of laboratory-confirmed MERS-CoV infection after close contact with camels that had rhinorrhea. Nasal swabs collected from the patient and from one of his nine camels were positive for MERS-CoV RNA. In addition, MERS-CoV was isolated from the patient and the camel. The full genome sequences of the two isolates were identical. Serologic data indicated that MERS-CoV was circulating in the camels but not in the patient before the human infection occurred...
June 26, 2014: New England Journal of Medicine