ABSTRACT
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) exhibits strong stability on conventional stainless steel (SS) surface, with infectious virus detected even after two days, posing a high risk of virus transmission via surface touching in public areas. In order to mitigate the surface toughing transmission, the present study develops the first SS with excellent anti-pathogen properties against SARS-COV-2. The stabilities of SARS-CoV-2, H1N1 influenza A virus (H1N1), and Escherichia coli (E.coli) on the surfaces of Cu-contained SS, pure Cu, Ag-contained SS, and pure Ag were investigated. It is discovered that pure Ag and Ag-contained SS surfaces do not display apparent inhibitory effects on SARS-CoV-2 and H1N1. In comparison, both pure Cu and Cu-contained SS with a high Cu content exhibit significant antiviral properties. Significantly, the developed anti-pathogen SS with 20 wt% Cu can distinctly reduce 99.75% and 99.99% of viable SARS-CoV-2 on its surface within 3 and 6 h, respectively. In addition, the present anti-pathogen SS also exhibits an excellent inactivation ability for H1N1 influenza A virus (H1N1), and Escherichia coli (E.coli). Interestingly, the Cu ion concentration released from the anti-pathogen SS with 10 wt% and 20 wt% Cu was notably higher than the Ag ion concentration released from Ag and the Ag-contained SS. Lift buttons made of the present anti-pathogen SS are produced using mature powder metallurgy technique, demonstrating its potential applications in public areas and fighting the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens via surface touching.
ABSTRACT
To investigate a superspreading event at a fitness center in Hong Kong, China, we used genomic sequencing to analyze 102 reverse transcription PCR-confirmed cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection. Our finding highlights the risk for virus transmission in confined spaces with poor ventilation and limited public health interventions.
ABSTRACT
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global health concern as it continues to spread within China and beyond. The causative agent of this disease, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), belongs to the genus Betacoronavirus, which also includes severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (SARSr-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERSr-CoV). Codon usage of viral genes are believed to be subjected to different selection pressures in different host environments. Previous studies on codon usage of influenza A viruses helped identify viral host origins and evolution trends, however, similar studies on coronaviruses are lacking. In this study, we compared the codon usage bias using global correspondence analysis (CA), within-group CA and between-group CA. We found that the bat RaTG13 virus best matched the overall codon usage pattern of SARS-CoV-2 in orf1ab, spike and nucleocapsid genes, while the pangolin P1E virus had a more similar codon usage in membrane gene. The amino acid usage pattern of SARS-CoV-2 was generally found similar to bat and human SARSr-CoVs. However, we found greater synonymous codon usage differences between SARS-CoV-2 and its phylogenetic relatives on spike and membrane genes, suggesting these two genes of SARS-CoV-2 are subjected to different evolutionary pressures.
ABSTRACT
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a new human disease caused by an animal coronavirus that adapted to efficient human-to-human transmission. The disease first emerged in November 2002 in Guangdong Province, China and spread globally within months. The SARS coronavirus (SARS CoV) affects multiple organ systems with severe viral pneumonia as its main clinical manifestation but with diarrhea, lymphopenia, and mild liver dysfunction being common extra-pulmonary manifestations. Increasing age and the presence of underlying respiratory diseases worsens the prognosis. Unlike other respiratory viral infections, transmission of SARS was less frequent in the first 5 days of illness and correlated with low viral load in the upper respiratory tract at this stage of the illness. This fortuitous feature of the disease allowed the public health measures of case detection and patient isolation to interrupt virus transmission in the community and abort the SARS outbreak. Bats are a reservoir of a virus closely related to SARS CoV and this may be the likely precursor from which the human-adapted SARS CoV emerged. Small mammals such as ‘civet-cats’ (Paguma larvata) within live animal markets in southern China serve as amplifiers of infection and these markets were the likely interface where zoonotic transmission occurred. The viral spike protein is necessary and sufficient for inducing protective antibody responses and has been a key target in the development of candidate vaccines. FAU - Peiris, J.S.M.