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HEALTH AND MEDICINE

Possible Treatment for MERS RevealedJune 30, 2015 | by Josh L Davis

photo credit: Jarun Ontakrai/Shutterstock

The race is on for researchers to find a therapy or vaccine effective against Middle East

Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS. Originating in Saudi Arabia, the viral illness has already

spread around the world, with the most recent outbreak occurring in South Korea where the

death toll has so far hit 33. But promisingly, a team of scientists has just produced the most

promising candidate treatment yet to tackle the disease.

The researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine have succeeded in

producing two new therapeutic antibodies that have been demonstrated to protect and treat

animal models for MERS viral infection. The proteins work by directly targeting and

neutralizing the virus, rendering it harmless.

While early, this is very exciting, and has real potential to help MERS patients, explained

Professor Matthew Frieman, who led the research published in Proceedings of the National

Academy of Sciences. We hope that clinical study will progress on these two antibodies to

see whether they can eventually be used to help humans infected with the virus.

First reported in 2012, MERS causes acute respiratory illness, including fever, coughs, and

shortness of breath. It has been reported in 26 countries, but most of the cases and 400

deaths have occurred in Saudi Arabia. It's thought that the disease originated here after the

virus jumped from camels to people, which are the primary reservoir of this pathogen, health and medicine

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though now it can spread from person to person. Classed as a coronavirus, it belongs to a

large family of viruses that includes the common cold, SARS, and many carried by bats,

which are also thought to transmit the disease.

In order to test the candidate antibodies, the researchers also developed a new strain of

mice which they hope will help them understand better how the virus functions. These so-

called "humanized" mice are designed to express parts of the human immune system, which

is necessary because mice are not usually susceptible to MERS. "This new mouse model

will significantly boost our ability to study potential treatments and help scientists to

understand how the virus causes disease in people, says Frieman.

While these findings are certainly encouraging, the road to an effective treatment is long

and often difficult. Unless some fast tracking system is put in place such as that seen for the

Ebola treatment last year, which was also tested on primates first and not mice, the MERS

antibodies are unlikely to be rolled out anytime soon, while the outbreak in South Korea

rumbles on.

Professor Frieman's work provides the first glimmer of hope that we can treat and cure this

threatening virus, said Dean Albert Reece, who is also the vice president for Medical

Affairs at the University of Maryland. I know that they will continue to work hard to see

whether these compounds can take the next steps to clinical trials.

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