Pets are tested on coronavirus Mers

Scientists intend to continue the search for carriers of the coronavirus Mers-COV, which causes the so-called "Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome." Pets will be tested on the virus: cats, dogs and even rats.

This disease appeared in the fall of 2012 and has already managed to take away the lives of about 200 people. Previously, the Mers-COV virus was found in one type of Arabian bats, as well as in one-humped camels. A genetic study confirmed the kinship of the virus found in the body of camels with a virus that caused people's illness.

However, the leading author of this study, Dr. Thomas Brieze) says that so far there is a number of questions about the ways of spreading the virus. If the camels were the only source of infection of people with this virus, the vast majority of the sick would be closely related to camels in their daily classes. But in many cases, patients with the Middle East respiratory syndrome did not have contacts with camels.

A study of the geographical spread of the virus in camels has recently been published. It showed that it is much wider than the area where cases of people's disease are recorded. For example, it is in Nigeria and Ethiopia, where no message about the disease came. The problems of the spread of the virus among animals will be discussed at the Congress of the World Organization for Animal Health, which has begun in Paris.