Coronavirus Jumped from Malaysian Dogs

We discovered the coronavirus that jumped from Malaysian dogs to humans is not a new disease, emerging to threaten us now. But this was only after we dug down into the Journal of Infectious Diseases, and found the eight cases actually occurred in 2018. However, the researchers only learned about them recently. That was when they trawled through archived pneumonia cases in Sarawak, a state on Borneo Island in East Malaysia.

A Short Background of Where the Cases Came From

Sarawak is on Northwest Borneo Island. It has a population of some 2.8 million, and a land mass of 48,000 miles. This is roughly equivalent to U.S. New York State, or North Carolina. The eight cases were 2.5% of 301 children with pneumonia. Moreover, they mostly lived in rural areas where they had frequent exposure to domesticated animals and wildlife.

The research team comprised scientists at Ohio and Duke Universities, and colleagues from Sarawak and Ethiopia. This team effort enabled them to find the coronavirus – that jumped from Malaysian dogs – in archived nasopharyngeal swabs. Health professionals regularly obtain these samples from upper nostrils according to Mayo clinic.

The research report (see first link below) concludes as follows:

1 … This is the first report of a new canine / feline coronavirus isolated from a human pneumonia patient.

2… But if the virus is a pathogen, it may be the eighth unique coronavirus to cause disease in humans.

3 … Therefore this underscores the public health threat of animal coronaviruses. And thus the need to conduct better surveillance.

Assessing the Coronavirus That Jumped from Malaysian Dogs

News-Medical.Net commented on the research (see second link below). First, they spoke to Professor Gregory Gray from Global Health and Environmental Health, Duke University, who led the team. That’s how they learned ‘Nobody knows how common this virus is. Or whether it can be transmitted efficiently from dogs to humans or between humans.

‘What’s more important,’ Prof Gray continued. ‘Is that these coronaviruses are likely spilling over to humans from animals much more frequently than we know. However, we are missing them. Because most hospital diagnostic tests only pick up known human coronaviruses.’ We therefore need to take note that a coronavirus jumped from Malaysian dogs, and detect similar pathogens sooner.