Middle East virus found in air of camel barn

Researchers in Saudi Arabia said Tuesday they have found genetic traces of the dangerous Middle East respiratory virus, MERS-CoV, in the air of a barn that housed a sick camel. The study in mBio, the journal of the American Society for Microbiology, calls for further research to determine if the potentially fatal virus can be transmitted through the air. MERS emerged in 2012 and has already killed 209 of the 699 people infected, according to the World Health Organization latest update on June 11. For this study led by Esam Azhar, associate professor of medical virology at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, researchers sampled the air inside a camel barn owned by a man who died of MERS.