Scientists find compound to fight virus behind MERS and SARS

June 1, 2014

Geneva, Jun 1: An international team of scientists say they have identified a compound that can fight coronaviruses, responsible for the SARS and MERS outbreaks, which currently have no cure.

MERS and SARS
Coronaviruses affected the upper and lower respiratory tracts in humans.

They are the reason for up to a third of common colds.

A more severe strain of the virus, thought to have come from bats, triggered the global SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic in 2002 that killed nearly 800 people.

The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is a new strain discovered in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and thought to have originated in camels. More deadly but less contageous, it has so far killed 193 people across 636 confirmed cases.

But now a team of scientists led by Edward Trybala from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and Volker Thiel from the University of Bern have discovered a compound called K22, which appears to block the ability of the virus to spread in humans.

They first noticed that K22 was able to combat a weak form of coronavirus that causes mild cold-like symptoms, and went on to show that it can fight more serious strains, including SARS and MERS.

In an article for specialist journal "PLOS Pathogens", the scientists explained that the virus reproduces in the cells that line the human respiratory system.

The virus takes over the membranes that separate different parts of human cells, reshaping them into a sort of armour around itself in order to start its production cycle.

But K22 acts at an early stage in this process, preventing the virus from taking control of the cell membranes.

"The results confirm that the use of the membrane of the host cell is a crucial step in the life-cycle of the virus," the researchers wrote.

Their work shows that "the process is highly sensitive and can be influenced by anti-viral medications."

They said the recent SARS epidemic and MERS outbreak mean there should be urgent investment in testing K22 outside the laboratory and developing medicines.

Earlier this month, experts gathered in Geneva by the World Health Organisation confirmed that MERS was spreading but had yet to reach the level of global emergency.

Most of the MERS cases and deaths so far have been in Saudi Arabia, but the virus has been imported to more than a dozen other countries.

All of those cases have involved people who became ill while in the Middle East.

Iran registered its first death from MERS on Thursday, and has registered six cases of the infection.

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News Network
November 15,2024

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Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has killed or captured 69 terrorists linked to the Israeli spy agency Mossad during a major counterterrorism drill in the country's southeast, its spokesman says.  

General Ahmad Shafaei, the spokesman for the “Martyrs of Security” drill, said Friday that a total of 23 terrorists have been killed and another 46 arrested in various clean-up operations ever since the IRGC Ground Force launched it in the Sistan and Baluchestan province on November 1.

Seven terrorists have also turned themselves in during the period.

“The undeniable fact about terrorists is that they rely on arrogant powers, particularly the intelligence service of the wicked and vicious Zionist regime," Shafaei said.

“Unfortunately, weapons and munitions at terrorists’ disposal are among the most sophisticated ones in the world. This accounts for their heavy dependence.” 

The official stated that several members of the disbanded terror teams were non-Iranian nationals, who had been hired by foreign intelligence agencies to carry out acts of sabotage and terror inside Iran.

In a most recent operation, six terrorists were arrested and four others were eliminated, three of whom were non-Iranians, he added. 

On October 26, ten members of Iran's law enforcement forces were killed in a terrorist attack in the Gohar Kuh district of Taftan in the Sistan and Baluchestan province.

The so-called Jaish al-Adl terrorist group claimed responsibility for the assault, which was one of the deadliest in the province in recent months.

The group has carried out numerous terrorist attacks in Iran, primarily in Sistan and Baluchestan.

Its tactics include the abduction of border guards as well as targeting civilians and police stations within the province to incite chaos and disorder.

In January, Iran launched a military operation during which the headquarters of the Pakistan-based terrorist group was targeted in missile strikes, destroying its infrastructure.

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News Network
November 27,2024

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Gaza health authorities say Israel’s military has "erased” over 1,400 Palestinian families in the besieged territory over the past year.

The Health Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the Israeli regime "completely erased about 1,410 families, numbering 5,444 people, from the civil registry during the same period.”

It said that there were 3,463 families with only one survivor, while 2,287 families had more than one survivor.

In northern Gaza, Israel’s warplanes have continued dropping bombs over Palestinian families, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

It said one airstrike hit a family home in Jabalia, causing numerous casualties on Tuesday.

According to Gaza's civil defense agency, at least seven people were killed and several others wounded in the attack.

Another person was killed in a strike on a house in nearby Beit Lahia, a town in northern Gaza, which has been declared “a disaster area" by the municipality due to "the Israeli war of extermination and siege, and it has no food, water, hospitals, doctors, services, or communications."

The health ministry said, “Israeli forces killed 14 people and injured 108 others in three massacres of families in the last 24 hours.”

“Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them.”

International organizations and leaders believe that Israel’s genocidal war, now in its second year, is a deliberate attempt to destroy the population of Gaza.

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News Network
November 21,2024

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Hamas says the Israeli regime’s sole objective lies in “erasing” the entirety of the Palestinian population from across the Palestinian territories.

Khalil al-Hayya, a ranking official with the Gaza Strip-based Palestinian resistance movement, made the remarks to the Palestinian al-Aqsa TV on Wednesday.

“The occupation targets everyone—it strikes hospitals, civil defense, women, children, and the elderly,” he said, adding that the regime sought to “empty Gaza of its residents, and displace the Palestinian people to fulfill its dreams of building a Zionist Jewish state across all of Palestine.”

The remarks came amid the regime’s October 2023-present war of genocide on the coastal sliver that has so far claimed the lives of nearly 44,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

“This unprecedented aggression in modern times evokes scenes from the dark ages of human history, having crossed all red lines and exceeded every expectation of brutality in the modern era,” the Palestinian official lamented.

He also regretted that the regime had added “systematic and dangerous starvation to its aggression, falsely claiming before the world that it allows 250 [aid] trucks into Gaza daily. In reality, the number of trucks is far fewer.”

Hayya, meanwhile, regretted that “scenes of children torn apart, women screaming over their children, and heart-wrenching destruction have failed to stir enough humanity to stop these crimes.”

He decried the United States for vetoing the United Nations Security Council’s resolutions that are aimed at bringing about a potential ceasefire in the war, saying this indicated Washington’s “partnership in the aggression” and a simultaneous siege that the Israeli regime has been enforcing on Gaza.

Addressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the official asserted that, despite what the Israeli official is after, Hamas would not hand over the regime’s captives “without [the regime’s] stopping the war.”

He called Netanyahu “the main obstacle” in the way of cessation of the aggression, saying the Israeli premier “blocks any progress for political reasons,” and citing his preventing conclusion of a ceasefire agreement in July.

Hayya also warned that the regime sought to expand the war beyond Gaza, but asserted that its goals are “impossible and will never happen.”

“Today, the enemy exposes its true intentions of extermination and displacement, but it will fail,” he stressed.

“The Palestinian people are resilient and will not surrender, as they believe in their humanitarian and political cause. The enemy and its allies will not succeed in achieving their goals. This steadfast people will endure, and the occupation will not prevail against them.”

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