What is the MERS virus

With the advancement of modern life, people's thinking and lifestyles are becoming more and more open. The benefits brought by this development are very beneficial to economic development, but it also brings greater risks to people's health. Many disease viruses with a narrow transmission range have begun to spread widely. For example, the MERS virus is an emerging type of virus. Let's take a look at what the MERS virus is? What is pathology?

The MERS virus is a new type of coronavirus that has been named Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus. Most cases of MERS virus infection have occurred in Saudi Arabia.

MERS-CoV was first discovered in Saudi Arabia in September 2012. It was named "SARS-like virus" in the early days because of its similar clinical symptoms to SARS. It became the sixth known human coronavirus and the third one isolated in the past 10 years. The coronavirus in the human body was first isolated in the UK in the 1960s and is named for the crown-like protrusions on its surface. It may be associated with respiratory infections in humans, pigs, cats, dogs, rats, and chickens.

Pathological analysis:

The latest research shows that at least two people infected with MERS had visited farms and may have had contact with animals before they became ill, and the virus is most similar to the coronavirus in bats. Researchers have found that some bats in Ghana and parts of Europe carry coronaviruses that are very close to MERS, in some cases with a genetic difference of no more than 2%.

The most likely source of the SARS virus is bats, which also supports the possibility that the new coronavirus comes from bats. However, this conclusion remains to be confirmed, and scientists do not know whether the virus is transmitted directly from bats to humans or through an intermediate host. In the SARS epidemic, the most likely intermediate host was the civet cat.

Modern research on the differences in the human immune system's responses to the MERS and SARS viruses shows that, although both viruses belong to the same family of coronaviruses, they have clear genetic differences and use different receptors. However, the new virus severely damages the patient's immune system to a greater extent than the SARS virus, which may explain why the new virus is so deadly.

Some experts speculate that the outbreak of MERS may also involve some "super spreaders" like SARS, who are more likely to transmit the virus to others. Infections often occur in hospitals.