Seroepidemiology for MERS coronavirus using microneutralisation and pseudoparticle virus neutralisation assays reveal a high prevalence of antibody in dromedary camels in Egypt, June 2013.

摘要: We describe a novel spike pseudoparticle neutralisation assay (ppNT) for seroepidemiological studies on Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERSCoV) and apply this together with conventional microneutralisation (MN) tests to investigate 1,343 human 625 animal sera. The sera were collected in Egypt as region adjacent areas where MERS has been described, Hong Kong, China control region. Sera from dromedary camels had high prevalence of antibody reactive MERS-CoV by NT (93.6%) ppNT (98.2%) assay. titres ranged up 1,280 higher MN assays 10,240 assays. No other investigated species any reactivity MERS-CoV. While seropositivity does not exclude the possibility infection closely related virus, our data highlight need attempt detection MERSCoV or coronaviruses camels. show excellent correlation between newly developed require Biosafety Level 3 containment is thus relatively high-throughput assay, well suited large-scale seroepidemiology which are needed better understand ecology epidemiology