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Posted on 04/14/2003 2:34:09 PM PDT by EternalHope
German Firm Distributes First SARS Test Worldwide Mon Apr 14,11:52 AM ET Add Science - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Philip Blenkinsop
BERLIN (Reuters) - A German biotech company began distributing on Monday what it says is the first commercial test for a respiratory virus that has killed over 140 people and infected more than 3,300 worldwide, ravaging parts of Asia.
Hamburg-based Artus GmbH said it had developed the test for the virus causing Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) with the nearby Bernhard-Nocht-Institute (BNI) for Tropical Medicine in just two weeks and had begun distributing it free.
"We have had a wave of demand... We are providing it free of charge. It is an urgent medical need," Artus's marketing director Kay Koerner told Reuters, adding that the company may later seek financial gain from the test.
The test can detect the virus from throat swabs, sputum or feces and produces results in two hours, say its makers, who specialize in disease test kits. They said classical tests for antibodies typically took 10 to 20 days after infection.
Koerner said Artus had already sent test kits to a number of Asian countries, and laboratories in Australia, Scandinavian countries and Germany were also being supplied.
Artus, which has subsidiaries in Malaysia and the United States, is not stock market listed. It was set up as an independent company by the BNI.
German microbiologist Bernhard Fleischer, head of the BNI, said late last month that his institute had probably identified the virus causing SARS.
Scientists believe it is caused by a new coronavirus, a relative of one of the many viruses that cause the common cold. SARS is marked by a high fever, dry cough and other flu-like symptoms but can progress to pneumonia.
About four percent of patients with SARS die, scientists say.
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(1) The current Genome Shotgun Data are available for download. The format is raw sequence reads in Fasta format, not vector or quality clipped.
(2) Comparison to other members of the order _Nidovirales_ [which includes the families _Coronaviridae_ and _Arteriviridae_ - Mod.CP]]. These images were generated by the Sockeye genome viewer, developed at the Genome Sciences Centre. The images show the comparison of the sequence of the TOR2 isolate [i.e. a virus isolated from a Canadian patient] to the sequence of other related members of the order _Nidobvirales_. The tracks show Blast comparison to (1) avian infectious bronchitis virus, (2) bovine coronavirus,
(3) human coronavirus 229E,
(4) murine hepatitis virus, (
5) porcine epidemic diarrhea virus,
(6) transmissible gastroenteritis virus. An annotated image is also available.
http://www.promedmail.org/pls/askus/f?p=2400:1001:41129919313081845::NO::F2400_P1001_BACK_PAGE,F2400_P1001_PUB_MAIL_ID:1000,21266
It should be noted that analysis of sequences from 3 different regions of the genome confirm the initial observation that the Urbani strain of the SARS-associated coronavirus is distinct from all previously recognized coronaviruses and sequence studies are not likely to identify a source for this novel coronavirus.
and
The genome appears to be that of a "completely new" coronavirus unrelated to any known human or animal viruses, a scientist at the Canadian agency said. a competing United States team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta is reaching the same conclusion, and scientists from both teams said the virus's startling novelty could make it harder to trace what animal or bird it came from, if it did jump from another species.
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