- From ProMED-mail
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- New Human Coronavirus Identified
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- Australian Broadcasting Corporation 3-26-4
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- Dutch scientists have announced they had identified a
previously unknown coronavirus that causes respiratory disease and is likely
to have spread around the world. The virus is only the 4th coronavirus
to be found in nearly 4 decades and could explain many cases of respiratory
illness that leave doctors baffled. Named HCoV-NL63, the virus causes symptoms
similar to a bad cold and does not unleash the pneumonia characterised
by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus, which killed some
800 people and infected 8000 in the 2002-03 epidemic. Young children and
people whose immune system has been compromised by HIV or other diseases
are more at risk although not apparently fatally so.
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- In a study published online by the journal Nature Medicine
[see reference below], the University of Amsterdam team report on their
detective work, launched after a 7-month-old girl was to admitted to their
hospital in April 2003 with bronchiolitis, an inflammation of the lower
airways. Tests for common cold viruses, influenza virus, and other well-known
[respiratory] viruses all proved negative.
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- "At first, we were worried that the child may have
caught the virus from an animal because she had been to the zoo the previous
weekend," said the research supervisor, Ben Berkhout, an expert in
human retrovirology. [Then using RT-PCR screening the Dutch team obtained
a couple of fragments that looked like coronavirus genome fragments but
not identical to one of the known human coronaviruses]. Closer examination
of its genetic code showed it shares about 2/3 of its nucleotides with
the 3 established coronavirus human coronaviruses. In other words, it was
an independent member of the coronavirus family that had never been spotted
before.
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- The team then tested stored samples taken from other
admissions and found that another 7 patients with respiratory problems
-- 7 percent of admissions -- had been infected by the same virus. 4 of
the 7 were children less than 12 months old and 3 were adults. 2 of the
adults had an impaired immune system -- one had had a bone-marrow transplant
and the other had AIDS.
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- These findings suggested that: "This novel coronavirus
is already widespread in the population," said Lia van der Hoek. "It
is causing perhaps the symptoms of common colds, but in the younger individuals
it is causing more severe respiratory problems," Mr Berkhout said.
"About 20 to 50 percent of respiratory problems do not have a [known]
viral cause, so we now can fill in a significant fraction of those unknowns."
Dr Berkhout admitted it was "surprising" that this virus had
never been found before, but part of the problem was the lack of tools
to detect new agents easily. In general, coronaviruses are usually transmitted
by airborne droplets breathed in from someone in proximity who, for instance,
sneezes or coughs.
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- _____
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- ProMED-mail
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- [The paper referred to in this report is published in
the current online edition of Nature Medicine: "Identification of
a new human coronavirus, by Lia van der Hoek, Krzysztof Pyrc, Maarten F
Jebbink, Wilma Vermeulen-Oost, Ron J M Berkhout, Katja C Wolthers, Pauline
M E Wertheim-van Dillen, Jos Kaandorp, Joke Spaargaren, Ben Berkhout University
of Amsterdam."
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- The unexpected identification by virologists in Amsterdam
of a novel human coronavirus predominantly associated with relatively mild
upper respiratory tract disease and more specific lower respiratory tract
disease (bronchiolitis) in infants comes not long after the equally surprising
identification of another novel global human respiratory pathogen (human
metapneumovirus) by virologists in Rotterdam, and is another remarkable
"first" for Dutch virologists. The new coronavirus has been designated
HCoV-NL63 and is clearly different from the 3 known human coronavirus species
-- _Human coronavirus 229E_, _Humman coronavirus OC43_, and the _SARS coronavirus_.
These human coronaviruses (together with other mammalian coronaviruses)
belong to 3 phylogenetically distinct clusters of species within the genus
_Coronavirus_ of the family _Coronaviridae_. The precise evolutionary relationship
of this new human coronavirus to the established members of the family
has yet to be determined. - Mod.CP]
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- Paramyxoviruses, new human pathogen - Netherlands 20010603.1094
.....................mpp/cp/pg/mpp
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- Patricia A. Doyle, PhD Please visit my "Emerging
Diseases" message board at: http://www.clickitnews.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=emergingdiseases
Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health
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