Seroepidemiology of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus in Saudi Arabia (1993) and Australia (2014) and characterisation of assay specificity

M G Hemida; R A Perera; R A Al Jassim; G Kayali; L Y Siu; P Wang; K W Chu; S Perlman; M A Ali; A Alnaeem; Y Guan; L L Poon; L Saif; M Peiris

doi:10.2807/1560-7917.ES2014.19.23.20828

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Seroepidemiology of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus in Saudi Arabia (1993) and Australia (2014) and characterisation of assay specificity
M G Hemida^1,2,3 , R A Perera^1,4 , R A Al Jassim⁵ , G Kayali⁶ , L Y Siu⁷ , P Wang^7,8 , K W Chu⁴ , S Perlman⁹ , M A Ali¹⁰ , A Alnaeem¹¹ , Y Guan⁴ , L L Poon⁴ , L Saif¹² , M Peiris^4,7
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Affiliations: ¹ These authors contributed equally to this work ² Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, College of Veterinary Medicine, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia ³ Department of Virology Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kaferelsheik University, Egypt ⁴ Centre of Influenza Research and School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China ⁵ School of Agriculture and Food Sciences Faculty of Science, The University of Queensland, Gatton, Australia ⁶ St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, United States ⁷ HKU-Pasteur Pole, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China ⁸ Key Laboratory of Protein and Peptide Pharmaceuticals, Chinese Academy of Sciences - University of Tokyo Joint Laboratory of Structural Virology and Immunology, Beijing, China ⁹ Department of Microbiology, University of Iowa, United States ¹⁰ Division of Environmental Research, National Research Centre, Giza, Egypt ¹¹ Department of Clinical Studies, College of Veterinary Medicine, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia ¹² OARDC/The Ohio State University, Wooster, United States

Correspondence:
M Peiris
malik hku.hk
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Citation style for this article: Hemida M G, Perera R A, Al Jassim R A, Kayali G, Siu L Y, Wang P, Chu K W, Perlman S, Ali M A, Alnaeem A, Guan Y, Poon L L, Saif L, Peiris M. Seroepidemiology of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus in Saudi Arabia (1993) and Australia (2014) and characterisation of assay specificity. Euro Surveill. 2014;19(23):pii=20828. https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES2014.19.23.20828 Received: 06 Jun 2014

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Abstract

The pseudoparticle virus neutralisation test (ppNT) and a conventional microneutralisation (MN) assay are specific for detecting antibodies to Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) when used in seroepidemiological studies in animals. Genetically diverse MERS-CoV appear antigenically similar in MN tests. We confirm that MERS-CoV was circulating in dromedaries in Saudi Arabia in 1993. Preliminary data suggest that feral Australian dromedaries may be free of MERS-CoV but larger confirmatory studies are needed.