An international team of scientists say they have identified a compound that can fight coronaviruses, responsible for the SARS and MERS outbreaks, which currently have no cure. Coronaviruses affected the upper and lower respiratory tracts in humans. They are the reason for up to a third of common colds.
A more severe strain of the virus, thought to have come from bats, triggered the global SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic in 2002 that killed nearly 800 people.
The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is a new strain discovered in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and thought to have originated in camels. More deadly but less contagious, it has so far killed 193 people across 636 confirmed cases. But now a team of scientists led by Edward Trybala from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and Volker Thiel from the University of Bern have discovered a compound called K22, which appears to block the ability of the virus to spread in humans.
Thanks for the ping.
Someone sent me a phylogenetic tree of the MERS virus. So far, MERS is showing very little variation. I guess that’s good, since that means the virus has not yet become easily transmissible.