@pandemic_news Woah!! There is a known FELINE coronavirus...that is not at all #MERS-CoV. See pink filled circles at http://t.co/vUEyD2FoaO
— Ian M Mackay, PhD (@MackayIM) August 14, 2013
The article's headline had read MERS corona kills cat in the East. It seems to have been picked up some others overnight.
I notice the headline has been changed today. [UPDATE 160813-the concept of a "feline reservoir has not been picked up by ProMED and a new version can be found at the Saudi Gazette.]
MERS-CoV is not the only CoV on the block of course. Have a look at the phylogenetic tree I posted a few days back - there are lots of CoVs and they infest a large number of different animals. The feline coronavirus (feline infectious peritonitis virus; FIPV) is an alphacoronavirus. It's well known. [UPDATE] It's probably the cause here. There is no evidence to support MERS-CoV in these animals. None.
I think headlines like this are akin to spam email - try and find a fact in there that has, or can be, verified from a trusted source, think about whether it makes sense (is this website likely to be the first one to report on MERS-CoV in cats?) or look for a reference in the text to an entirely different source (like a lab test result for example). That approach is not foolproof - but it's better than believing something so dramatically different from what we currently know, on first read.
My general rule of thumb in science reporting in the media is to assume it's wrong. If it's an interesting subject, the article is just a trigger for me to go work out what the actual story is.
ReplyDeleteThis attitude has served me pretty well.