Volume 20, Number 12—December 2014
Dispatch
MERS Coronavirus Neutralizing Antibodies in Camels, Eastern Africa, 1983–1997
Table 1
MERS-CoV antibodies in dromedary camels from eastern Africa*
Country, date | No. samples | No. rELISA positive (%)† | No. mNT positive (%)‡ |
---|---|---|---|
Egypt, 1997 Jul | 43 | 35 (81.4) | 34 (79.1) |
Somalia | |||
1983 Jan–Nov | 25 | 20 (80.0) | 17 (68.0) |
1984 Feb–Dec | 61 | 52 (85.2) | 53 (86.9) |
Sudan, 1983 Jun | 60 | 52 (86.7) | 49 (81.7) |
Total | 189 | 159 (84.1) | 153 (81.0) |
*MERS-CoV, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus; mNT, microneutralization test; rELISA, recombinant ELISA based on the MERS-CoV subunit 1 spike protein.
†Serum was tested at a dilution of 1:100.
‡mNT for MERS-CoV was done in a microtiter plate format in duplicate at dilutions 1:80 and 1:800. Serum with reciprocal titers >80 were considered MERS-CoV antibody positive.
1These authors contributed equally to this article.