From SARS to MERS: evidence and speculation

MERS differs from SARS, say experts.

The emergence of SARS, MERS and Novel SARS-2 coronaviruses in the 21st century

At the beginning of the 21st century, a new deadly infectious disease known as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was recognized as a global public health threat. Subsequently, ten years after the initial SARS cases occurred in 2002, new cases of another atypical respiratory disease caused worldwide concern. This disease became known as Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Currently, ...

From SARS to MERS: crystallographic studies on coronaviral proteases enable antiviral drug design.

This review focuses on the important contributions that macromolecular crystallography has made over the past 12 years to elucidating structures and mechanisms of the essential proteases of coronaviruses, the main protease (M(pro) ) and the papain-like protease (PL(pro) ). The role of X-ray crystallography in structure-assisted drug discovery against these targets is discussed. Aspects dealt wi...

Stopping the SuperSpreader Epidemic: the lessons from SARS (with, perhaps, applications to MERS)

I discuss the so-called SuperSpreader (SS) epidemic, for which SARS is the canonical example (and, perhaps, MERS will be another). I use simulation by an agent-based model as well as the mathematics of multi-type branchingprocesses to illustrate how the SS epidemic differs from the more-familiar uniform epidemic (e.g., caused by influenza). The conclusions may surprise the reader: (a) the SS ep...

Development of animal models against emerging coronaviruses: From SARS to MERS coronavirus.

Two novel coronaviruses have emerged to cause severe disease in humans. While bats may be the primary reservoir for both viruses, SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) likely crossed into humans from civets in China, and MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has been transmitted from camels in the Middle East. Unlike SARS-CoV that resolved within a year, continued introductions of MERS-CoV present an on-going publ...