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Pitt: Vaccine protects mice against MERS virus

Luis Fábregas

International scientists led by the University of Pittsburgh said they have developed a vaccine that could someday protect people from the highly contagious Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, a virus that has killed nearly 300 people worldwide.

The vaccine would be used to immunize camels, which are believed to be the source of human infection. Preliminary tests of the vaccine protected mice, according to a study published online that will appear in the journal Vaccine.

“It's an interesting concept, to vaccinate animals to protect humans,” said Dr. Andrea Gambotto, a senior author of the study and an associate professor in Pitt's Department of Surgery. “It's the equivalent of immunizing all deer in Western Pennsylvania to get rid of Lyme disease or immunizing all the mosquitoes to get rid of malaria.”

MERS causes coughing, fever and pneumonia and kills about a third of its victims. Some infected people experienced no symptoms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which said the virus does not transmit easily from human to human. There is no vaccine to protect humans.

The World Health Organization has recorded 837 confirmed MERS infections with at least 291 deaths worldwide. Most cases have occurred in Saudi Arabia.

There have been two MERS cases in the United States, in Indiana and Florida, but the virus represents a low risk to the general public, according to the CDC.

Gambotto and the other scientists created a vaccine that encodes for a characteristic protein found on the surface of the MERS virus. The vaccine primes the immune system to detect the protein and fight the virus, he said.

The team injected mice with the vaccine and gave them boosters through the nose three weeks later. All the immunized mice had antibody responses against the MERS protein.

Gambotto said the team submitted a request for funding to the National Institutes of Health to conduct more studies in a larger number of animals.

Luis Fábregas is Trib Total Media's medical editor. Reach him at 412-320-7998 or lfabregas@tribweb.com.