There is a promising new lead in research attempts to fight a disease known as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a viral infection known to have a 30-40 percent death rate for those infected with it.

MERS has been spreading throughout several areas of the world, including the Middle East, the Philippines, and Malaysia since 2012. So far, the infection is known to have killed over 100 people.

Little is known about MERS. The virus is thought to have originated in camels and somehow crossed to humans though how it is transmitted has not been discovered. As a result, there is no established form of treatment or vaccine. Researchers from China and Hong Kong hope to change this with their discovery of two different antibodies that seem to ward the virus off inside the body.

Known as MERS-4 and MERS-27, these antibodies block the virus from infecting the cell by preventing a protein from the surface of the virus from attaching to receptors on the cell.

This discovery has the potential to aid in the development of a treatment or vaccine to help fight the disease, which produces symptoms much like pneumonia. In the affected areas, many are beginning to feel a sense of urgency to find a treatment. In Saudi Arabia alone, 300 cases of MERS have been reported since 2012, 50 of which have come in during the last week. Of these 300 confirmed cases of MERS, roughly one-third have died.

New cases are being reported in Egypt and Europe and the lack of intervention has many health officials fearing an outbreak much like the SARS virus that claimed 800 lives in 2003. Both MERS and SARS are coronaviruses, and with the increasing rate of infection being reported and so much unknown about MERS, the comparisons are creating quite a sense of urgency for health officials in the areas with known infections.