An Italian health official reported today that 20 people who had contact with MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) patients in Italy have tested negative for the virus, while a US company announced it has made a potential vaccine for the novel pathogen.
Italy reported its first three MERS-CoV patients in the past week, involving a 45-year-old man who had been in Jordan, his 2-year-old niece, and a 42-year-old coworker. Shortly after those cases surfaced, press reports said 10 or 12 asymptomatic contacts of the patients had tested positive for the virus, but the reports were widely questioned.
Today Giovanni Rezza, MD, of the Superior Health Institute (Instituto Superiore di Sanita ) in Rome told CIDRAP News by e-mail that 20 close contacts of the MERS patients have tested negative for the virus. He said they were among about 50 close contacts who have been identified, all of whom are asymptomatic. He didn't specify whether all 50 were being tested, commenting only, "Clinical surveillance is ongoing."
Two days ago Rezza had reported via ProMED-mail that the institute had not confirmed the virus in any contacts of the patients, but he didn't specify at the time how many were tested. (ProMED-mail is the online disease-tracking service of the International Society for Infectious Diseases.)
Although a few MERS-CoV cases have been described as mild, no asymptomatic infections have been publicly confirmed thus far.
Meanwhile, Novavax Inc., Rockville, Md., announced today that it has developed a vaccine designed to provide protection against MERS-CoV. The vaccine is based on the virus's major surface spike protein and was made using recombinant nanoparticle technology, the company said in a press release. The firm said it "believes that its MERS-CoV vaccine candidate may provide a path forward for a vaccine for this emerging threat."
The company did not report any testing of the vaccine in animals.
Novavax previously made a recombinant nanoparticle vaccine for the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) coronavirus, a relative of MERS-CoV. A study that was published in Vaccine in July 2011 showed that the product completely protected animals that were challenged with the virus, the company said.
In other developments, Saudi Arabia signaled today that its MERS-CoV death toll has increased to 25, 1 more than was reported yesterday. The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health (MOH) did this only by changing the number of deaths on its MERS-CoV overview page from 24 to 25, without making a specific announcement. The number of cases in the country stayed at 40.
Saudi Arabian officials have provided very little information about most of the MERS-CoV cases or their response to the virus, and many observers have criticized the lack of openness.
See also:
Jun 6 Novavax statement
Saudi MOH MERS-CoV overview page
