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Volume 22, Number 10—October 2016
Dispatch

Viral RNA in Blood as Indicator of Severe Outcome in Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Infection

So Yeon Kim, Sun Jae Park, Sook Young Cho, Ran-hui Cha, Hyeon-Gun Jee, Gayeon Kim, Hyoung-Shik Shin, Yeonjae Kim, Yu Mi Jung, Jeong-Sun Yang, Sung Soon Kim, Sung Im Cho, Man Jin Kim, Jee-Soo Lee, Seung Jun Lee, Soo Hyun Seo, Sung Sup Park, and Moon-Woo SeongComments to Author 
Author affiliations: National Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea (S.Y. Kim, S. Park, S.Y. Cho, R. Cha, H.-G. Jee, G. Kim, H.-S. Shin, Y. Kim, Y.M. Jung); Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cheongju-si, South Korea (J.-S. Yang, S.S. Kim); Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul (S.I. Cho, M.J. Kim, J.-S. Lee, S.J. Lee, S.H. Seo, S.S. Park, M.-W. Seong)

Main Article

Table 2

Differences in Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus detection by rRT-PCR among specimen types, South Korea, 2015*

Characteristic
 Respiratory specimen type
 Blood specimen type
EDTA whole blood
 Serum
No. specimens
 20 sputum; 1 endotracheal aspirate
 21
 21
Days from initial confirmatory diagnosis using respiratory specimens to blood sampling
 Set as day 0
 1.4 (median 1, 
range 0–5)
 1.5 (median 1, 
range 0–5)
Viral gene region rRT-PCR
Upstream of E
Total positive results/total tests (%) 21/21 (100) 6/21 (29) 6/21 (29)
Median Ct (range) 28.48 (19.70–33.46)† 37.55 (35.34–38.07) 36.88 (34.24–38.14)
Open reading frame 1a
Total positive results/total tests (%) 21/21 (100) 0/21 (0) 0/21 (0)
Median Ct (range) 29.28 (21.00–34.21)† Not detected Not detected
Nucleocapsid
Total positive results/total tests (%) Not performed 7/21 (33) 7/21 (33)
Median Ct (range) Not performed 36.37 (35.62–38.04) 34.62 (32.93–38.84)

*Ct, cycle threshold; rRT-PCR, real-time reverse transcription PCR.
†One patient whose Ct was not reported was excluded.

Main Article

Page created: September 20, 2016
Page updated: September 20, 2016
Page reviewed: September 20, 2016
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