DECODING tHE DISEASE

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers) was first identified in 2012. The virus, which can suddenly cause severe and fatal respiratory symptoms, systemic infection and multi-organ failure, has caused more than 2,250 confirmed infections with a 35 per cent mortality rate in 27 countries.

Mers can spread from camel-tohuman or person-to-person. Many global cases are linked with the Arabian peninsula because of its high camel population but it has the potential to spread globally, as seen in a 2015 outbreak in South Korea.

A collaborative team from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Saudi Arabia and Canada claim to have developed a potent and safe vaccine that protects against the deadly Middle East respiratory syndrome. The findings recently were published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. “In the past, we’ve mainly focused on developing universal influenza vaccines by targeting the viral proteins to specific cells that have a molecule called CD40 on their surfaces,” said senior author Chien-Te K Tseng, professor in UTMB’s Centers for Biodefense and Emerging Diseases. “We modified and optimised our earlier vaccine platform to generate new potential Mers vaccines.” The research team made two versions of a potential vaccine and evaluated their effectiveness and safety in mice that were genetically altered to have more humanlike immune responses.