Detecting new corona virus infecting humans

A new coronavirus that likely originated in dogs has been found to infect humans in Malaysia and Haiti .

NPR news website on November 5 reported that in early 2017, a group of medical staff including doctors, nurses and volunteers returned to Florida - USA after volunteering at a clinic in the US. Haiti. Immediately after returning, this group of 20 medical staff felt unwell.

"They had a mild fever, not a serious illness," said University of Florida virologist John Lednicky .

At that time, the Zika virus was spreading in Haiti. US health officials fear the group of health workers may have contracted the Zika virus and brought the disease back to Florida. They took a urine sample from each healthcare worker and asked Mr. Lednicky to determine if the Zika virus was present.

University of Florida virologist John Lednicky. (Photo: UFHealth).

Mr. Lednicky conducted the test by PCR method. As a result, all of them were negative for Zika virus. However, Mr. Lednicky suspected in the urine samples that there was another virus, so urine samples of 6 people in the group were taken to put them into monkey cells, the purpose is to find out if they can replicate and grow to the extent that they can. detectable or not.

"This is what we do in the lab. We cast a large net, trying to isolate the virus. Sometimes, the unexpected happens," Mr. Lednicky said.

And the unexpected happened. Mr. Lednicky found a new corona virus that many scientists believe could be a new pathogen spreading to humans - an eighth corona virus.

Researchers at Duke University and Ohio University named the "canine virus" CCoV-HuPn-2018 . (Photo: Business Today)

The new corona virus likely originated in dogs, apparently causing pneumonia in children. In May, scientists at Duke University (USA) announced they had detected a corona virus similar to the Haitian virus in children in a Malaysian hospital.

The researchers found the virus in the respiratory tracts of 3% of 301 patients tested in 2017 and 2018. The genetic sequencing of the virus from Malaysia suggests it likely originated in dogs. according to virologist Anastasia Vlasova.

Lednicky and his colleagues also found that the genetic sequence of the virus in Haiti was 99.4% similar to the virus in Malaysia. The findings were published in the journal  Clinical Infectious Diseases last weekend.

The findings seem alarming, but researchers have no evidence that the new coronavirus can spread between people or break out around the world.

A big question is why the "canine virus" in Malaysia can cause illness among medical workers in Haiti. Viruses can spread, but how it spreads is still a mystery.

Mr. Lednicky thinks that the new corona virus can spread widely but no one notices it. The virologist suspects it is ubiquitous, spreading to people who come into contact with dogs or humans who develop an immunity to it by exposure to the same virus.

The new corona virus likely originated in dogs. (Photo: KTVU).

Some scientists argue that doctors and researchers should actively look for the virus in patients. "I think that's important for several reasons. First, this virus has been linked to some cases of pneumonia in children. Second, we don't know if it can be transmitted from person to person. " - virologist Linda Saif at Ohio State University (USA).

In fact, scientists discovered the virus was almost identical in both Haiti and Malaysia, she added, and determined it was not spreading between people.

Explaining how the virus in Malaysia could infect health workers in Haiti, Ms. Saif put forward two theories: either an almost identical canine virus spread to humans in two countries in the same country. year; or the virus is living in humans - at low levels - in many parts of the world undetected.

Meanwhile, epidemiologist Jonna Mazet, University of California (USA), commented that the discovery of "canine virus"  is really good news because scientists have time to study and create diagnostic tools. and understand what it can cause to prevent it in time.