Researchers identify novel coronavirus in Malaysian child
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Researchers identified a new canine-feline alphacoronavirus in a Malaysian child with pneumonia.
If the virus is identified as a pathogen, it may be the eighth known unique coronavirus to cause disease in humans, Greg Gray, MD, MPH, FIDSA, an infectious disease epidemiologist and professor in the Duke Global health Institute, and colleagues reported in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
“There is a lot of work to be done. There are probably a lot of these viruses that we are missing because we do not have a way to detect them in the clinical care setting,” Gray told Healio. “The approved diagnostics pick up known pathogens — they are highly sensitive and highly specific. They are not prepared to pick up novel pathogens.”
Gray, Toh Teck Hock, MD, a pediatrician and head of the clinical research center at Sibu Hospital in Sarawak, Malaysia, and colleagues examined eight canine coronavirus-positive nasopharyngeal swabs from patients hospitalized with pneumonia between 2017 and 2018 at two hospitals in Sarawak. The eight patients were mostly children who lived in areas where contact with domestic animals and jungle wildlife are common, the researchers said.
Of the eight specimens, two had “sufficient” amounts of canine coronaviruses when a less-sensitive PCR assay was used. A single specimen showed cytopathic effects in its A72 canine cells and was identified as a novel canine-feline recombinant alphacoronavirus, which they named CCoV-HuPn-2018.
“Similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, this novel virus possesses some unique genetic features suggestive of recent zoonotic transmission,” they wrote.
In a previous article, Gray and Anfal Abdelgadir, MSc, from the Duke Global Health Institute, warned that influenza A, coronaviruses, metapneumovirus and several other virus types may present a future pandemic threat.
Gray emphasized the importance of effective collaboration between developing and developed countries when identifying potential pathogenic threats. He said that research and programs to surveil zoonotic threats should be targeted at the “human-animal nexus.”
“We have to find ways to work together and work with the agriculture industry because a lot of these pathogens that are emerging are associated with this industry,” Gray said.
“Viruses do not recognize any boundary — they do not travel with visas,” Teck Hock told Healio. “What is threatening us here in Sarawak could be a threat to the United States and other countries.”
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