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<p>China on Monday confirmed its first SARS case since an outbreak of the disease was contained in July and authorities ordered the emergency slaughter of some 10,000 civet cats and related species after tests linked a virus found in the animals to the patient.</p>

The Sars virus could be the result of a merger between viruses carried by birds and mammals, say researchers. The finding is based on a genetic analysis of the coronavirus, which causes the disease, and others that are closely related. A similar phenomenon is responsible for the emergence of new types of flu virus. The research, by a team from the University of Toronto, is published in the Journal of Virology. Sars killed 774 people and infected as many as 8,000 in a world-wide outbreak earlier this year. China and Hong Kong bore the brunt of its effect, but Taiwan,...

Colombia: Outbreak of Undiagnosed Severe Respiratory Disease -------------------------------------------------- From 25 Sep to 28 Nov 2003, 38 cases of a severe acute respiratory disease have been reported to the Colombian National Institute of Health (INS). The illness develops in a range of 10 to 7 days. The disease begins with high respiratory symptoms and fever, cough (with or without expectoration), dyspnea, headache, asthenia, and/or adynamia. Diarrhea, vomit or intense thoracic pain can also be present. Chest x-rays show interstitial and alveolar infiltrates. This illness has resulted in 13 deaths. Information coming from health care providers of National Institutions indicates an increase...

A year ago, a mystery virus began to kill people in China. Causing an illness dubbed severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the virus quickly spread beyond Asia and for a few months stirred fears of a worldwide epidemic. With stunning speed, scientists identified the virus and decoded its genetic sequence (SN: 4/26/03, p. 262: http://www.sciencenews.org/20030426/fob8.asp). Now, a research team has claimed victory in the race to identify the cellular receptor—the protein to which the virus attaches when it infects cells—for the SARS virus. Since the protein turned out to be a well-known one that had previously been implicated in heart...

Cats 'can catch and pass on Sars' Medical researchers have found cats can catch Sars and pass it on to other animals. A team of US scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston say the finding raises the question of whether cats can pass the virus to humans. Researcher Dr Robert Shope, an expert on emerging diseases, said: "You might want to quarantine the pets as well as the people. If it's been shown that the virus can transmit from cat to cat, it doesn't take much of a leap of faith that it will transmit to...

The heads of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cautioned last week that another outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) is possible in the United States or elsewhere. CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding and HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson said at a Sep 26 news conference that the federal agencies are preparing for the possible re-emergence of the virus. Gerberding said, "We don't know whether this virus is going to come back or not, but as an infectious disease expert, I can say in my experience I've never seen...

From correspondents in Hong Kong September 20, 2003 A HONG Kong hospital has raised a new SARS alert after four patients were observed to have fever, a key symptom of the potentially deadly illness, a hospital spokeswoman said today. Initial investigations had shown that the four women, aged 24 to 73, had fevers which had been caused by influenza and not the potentially fatal SARS virus, but further tests and observations were being carried out, she said. All the patients were in a stable condition at the Prince of Wales Hospital in the New Territories. The incident was the fourth...

POSTED: 7:38 a.m. EDT September 14, 2003 UPDATED: 7:43 a.m. EDT September 14, 2003 U.S. lab tests are confirming a medical researcher in Singapore has contracted SARS. The 27-year-old is the first victim of the potentially deadly disease since the World Health Organization declared SARS under control in July. The infected man is hospitalized in isolation and is said to be recovering well. Dozens of his friends, colleagues and relatives are under home quarantine as a precaution. Meanwhile, the Australian government is warning its already battered tourism industry to be prepared for a new outbreak of SARS in Asia in...

<p>The WHO says the Singapore case poses a 'low risk' to general public health.</p> <p>SINGAPORE -- Singapore authorities say a 27-year-old man has SARS, the world's first case since a global outbreak was declared over in July.</p> <p>Singaporean officials confirmed the laboratory technician had SARS after results from a second test were released Tuesday, and have ordered 25 people who have been in contact with the man to stay at home.</p>

A PATIENT at the Singapore General Hospital tested positive for the Sars virus on Monday, triggering concern that the respiratory disease may have resurfaced here. Hospital staff asked visitors to leave wards 74 and 78 in the late afternoon. The Straits Times learnt that more tests were done on the Singaporean man to confirm if the preliminary test result was correct, or if it was a false positive. He worked in a virology laboratory at Kent Ridge, but apparently was not working with the Sars virus. A Health Ministry spokesman said that Acting Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan will hold...

<p>Like tag-team partners in a nasty global grudge match, SARS and West Nile viruses have traded places, at least for now. But when the weather turns cool, authorities say, SARS may be back.</p> <p>Researchers say the deadly coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, known as SARS, still lurks in animals. That means it could again make the leap into humans.</p>

Mon September 8, 2003 10:30 AM ET By Jason Szep SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore became the first country to report a possible return of SARS on Monday, saying tests showed one man might have caught the potentially deadly disease, hours after the WHO had warned the virus could reappear. The Ministry of Health said initial tests appeared to show one man had tested positive for the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus, in what it believed was an isolated case. "Initial tests seem to indicate this person has the SARS virus, but we are doing further tests tonight," a ministry spokeswoman...

Mon September 8, 2003 09:48 AM ET SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore's Ministry of Health said on Monday initial tests appeared to indicate one man had tested positive for the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus. "Initial tests seem to indicate this person has the SARS virus, but we are doing further tests tonight," a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health told Reuters. She said the man, whom she described only as being ethnic Chinese, had been picked up by surveillance at Singapore General Hospital, and had been isolated at a hospital.

Gene study narrows source of SARS 19:00 04 September 03 NewScientist.com news serviceThe SARS-like virus found in a food market in Guangdong, China jumped from animals to people - and not the other way around - suggests new research. The study represents an important step in tracing the original source of the virus. However, the work still leaves many important questions about the route of transmission of the SARS virus to people unanswered. In May, the researchers, led by Yi Guan at the University of Hong Kong, revealed initial results of tests on a SARS-like coronavirus isolated from market animals...

Rats could have been cause of Sars outbreak Latest research into the spread of the virus at a Hong Kong apartment complex overturns previous ideas. Ien Cheng reports Published: August 24 2003 18:24 | Last Updated: August 24 2003 18:24 The World Health Organisation is studying new research that points to rattus rattus - the common black rat - as a key agent in the massive spread of Sars at Amoy Gardens, the Hong Kong apartment complex where 329 people contracted the deadly virus earlier this year. The research by Dr Stephen Ng, published this month in The Lancet, the...

Fears that an outbreak of a cold-like illness among patients at a 101-bed nursing home in the South Fraser area was linked to a mutant SARS-like virus were eased yesterday. Since July 1, 11 residents at Kinsmen Place Lodge in Surrey have died from an outbreak of respiratory illness. Tests on some of the victims have shown the presence of a coronavirus similar to SARS. Don Bower of the Fraser Health Au-thority said 11 residents and six out of 129 staff had cold symptoms at the second nursing home, which has not been identified. He said tests have failed to...

SARS virus may be back in Canada 17:32 20 August 03 Debora MacKenzie An outbreak of pneumonia, which tests so far indicate may be caused by the SARS virus, appears to be spreading in British Columbia, Canada. The virus had already infected over 150 people and killed six at a nursing home near Vancouver, and now appears to have infected a second nursing home nearby. Researchers have announced that several genetic sequences from the virus are identical to the virus that causes SARS. But, confusingly, the symptoms shown in the new outbreak have been much milder. The apparent end to...

VANCOUVER (CP) - Theories abound but answers remain elusive as experts from Canada and beyond try to figure out whether a mysterious respiratory outbreak at a Vancouver-area nursing home - which claimed another life Tuesday - is a new and milder form of SARS. The outbreak at the Kinsmen Place Lodge in suburban Surrey is confounding experts because most of the nearly 150 residents and staff who have become ill have suffered nothing more than mild cold-like symptoms - nothing like the severe disease that gave severe acute respiratory syndrome its name. While public health officials in British Columbia insist...

VANCOUVER -- Another person has died as medical officials in Surrey, B.C., try to decode an outbreak of a mysterious SARS-like virus. The illness has raised fears of a new outbreak of the dreaded disease in Western Canada and it is spreading, but experts are cautioning Canadians not to jump to the conclusion that the respiratory illness is to blame. A second nursing home in Surrey has had nine cases of a respiratory illness among its elderly residents. And, last week, the Kinsmen Place Lodge, also in Surrey, reported 143 cases of a similar illness. Another person at the lodge...

VANCOUVER -- A mutant SARS virus has forced into quarantine 19 workers at Surrey Memorial Hospital. They had all come into contact with an elderly female patient at the hospital who recently tested positive for a SARS-like infection. The woman is still in isolation at the hospital with respiratory problems. Hospital spokesperson Helen Carkner said none of the staff are ill, but are staying at home as a precaution. "For a period of a few hours, before we got the conclusive lab results," Carkner said Saturday, "there were some staff that were in contact with that patient." Public health officials...

By HELEN BRANSWELL VANCOUVER (CP) - Theories abound but answers remain elusive as experts from Canada and beyond try to figure out whether a mysterious respiratory outbreak at a Vancouver-area nursing home - which claimed another life Tuesday - is a new and milder form of SARS. The outbreak at the Kinsmen Place Lodge in suburban Surrey is confounding experts because most of the nearly 150 residents and staff who have become ill have suffered nothing more than mild cold-like symptoms - nothing like the severe disease that gave severe acute respiratory syndrome its name. While public health officials in...

Pamela Fayerman Vancouver Sun Tuesday, August 19, 2003 Genetic testing of blood and other samples from dead and ill Surrey nursing home residents and workers is so far consistent with SARS, the scientific director of Health Canada' s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg told The Vancouver Sun Monday. Dr. Frank Plummer, who doubles as the director-general of the Centre for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control in Ottawa, said the results are so intriguing that a virologist from the World Health Organization in Geneva is expected to visit the Winnipeg laboratory today to view the samples. Dr. David Patrick, chief epidemiologist...

SARS Epidemic May Reemerge, CDC Director Warns Wed June 18, 2003 03:04 PM ET CHICAGO (Reuters) - Like deadly flu epidemics of the past, SARS may reemerge later this year as a global health threat, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. Dr. Julie Gerberding pointed out that infectious diseases like SARS and monkeypox are spread around the world by travelers or by trade in exotic animals. "This is the new normal: emerging infectious diseases ... that create immediate global concerns because of the movement of people and animals," Gerberding said in a...

    ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 16, 2003--Today, Vaxim, Inc., a Rockville Maryland based biopharmaceutical company, announced that it has successfully identified and synthesized a peptide from SARS viral proteins, named V-S26, which is confirmed to bind specifically with serum antibody from SARS recovered patients.     With the focus of vast amount of resources of medical and biological institutes, the immediate need of effective SARS detection, treatment and prevention solutions remain pressing concerns that have not been answered by traditional techniques. Vaxim predicts that the company's novel approach by the quick identification of peptide that interacts with antibody specific to SARS viral proteins, will...

<p>CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- One of two patients being monitored in the Triangle for possible exposure to SARS died Friday. Preliminary tests from the Centers for Disease Control were negative. Meanwhile, dozens of people in the Triangle are under quarantine for possible exposure to SARS.</p>

When the first human retroviruses, including HIV, were discovered in the '70s and '80s, decades of research on animal retroviruses allowed researchers and clinicians to rapidly develop diagnostics, treatments, and preventative measures for the emerging human diseases. History is repeating itself as the world public health community draws on decades of research on animal coronaviruses to help them understand and battle the emergent human coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).On March 12, 2003, the World Health Organization issued a global alert for cases of atypical pneumonia in response to reports of an unidentified severe respiratory illness spreading in China and...

SARS almost certainly caused by new type of coronavirus — diagnostic tests being prepared. The outbreak of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) that originated in China is, with "95–97% certainty," caused by a completely new type of coronavirus, according to Julie Hall, who is responsible for the World Health Organization's Global Alert, Response and Operations Network. The new virus diverges by 50–60% from the three known groups of coronavirus, but that is typical of the variation between coronavirus groups, according to Stephan Günther of the Bernhard Nocht Institute of Tropical Medicine in Hamburg. Günther works with Christian Drosten, who along...

We have just found a coronavirus in intestinal contents of a chicken by a PCR targeted to the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene (pol gene). Sequence analysis of this gene showed that, though it is grouped closely with bovine coronavirus and is distantly related to infectious bronchitis virus, it has low nucleotide identity to all known coronaviruses. The birds were 15 days old and had no clinical sign of any disease. These findings are quite similar to those associated with the coronavirus implicated in SARS.We are now trying to sequence other isolates.

Scientists have satisfied key tests that confirm that the virus causing the global outbreak of severe pneumonia is a new type of coronavirus. Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has so far struck down more than 2300 people, and killed 78. The identification will speed up the testing of victims and their contacts to see how the disease spreads, and how it might be contained. That is badly needed, with new cases being announced each day in Hong Kong and China, and in previously unaffected countries, such as South Africa, the Philippines and Malaysia. In another sign of the seriousness of...

SARS Mystery DeepensBy Laurie Garrett, Staff WriterApril 1, 2003, 8:47 PM ESTAmid heightened concern about the new illness known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, the mystery of just what it is deepens. Scientists working on the Toronto outbreak reported that the agent responsible is "a novel virus that is not closely related to any of the known clusters” of coronaviruses, the prime family of suspected microbes.snip Autopsies revealed the virus caused parts of the lungs to hemorrhage blood, as would be the case with a hemorrhagic fever virus such as Ebola.snip ... Canadian SARS Study Team isolated viruses from several...

<p>Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome — SARS — has reached 27 countries, but only a handful have been severely affected, causing pandemonium, fear, mass quarantines, billions of dollars in lost GDP and entire populations to switch to surgical mask attire.</p> <p>The 5,000 cases and 274 deaths have occurred in China and other nations having significant trade, investment, cultural and tourist links with South China.</p>

Progress towards identification of the virus Research attention is increasingly focusing on the Coronavirus family, though viruses from the Paramyxovirus and other families are also being considered as scientists cast the widest possible net in their search for the cause of SARS. Many are of the opinion that a diagnostic test could rapidly follow conclusive identification of the pathogen. Experts in the network are also considering the theory that SARS is caused by co-infection with two new viruses that somehow need each other in order to cause severe disease in humans. Evidence is strongly pointing to a new virus, or...

One of Hong Kong's leading medical investigators into Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome has warned that an even wider global epidemic could occur next winter, even if the current outbreak proves to have peaked. Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, a microbiologist and one of two leaders of the Sars investigation team at Hong Kong university, said that other forms of the Coronavirus, of which Sars is the most deadly variant, go dormant in summer and become active again in winter. There was no reason to believe that the Sars virus would behave any differently. "This means that the coming winter may be even...

The virus of atypical pneumonia has been created artificially, possibly as a bacteriological weapon, believes Sergei Kolesnikov, Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. He expressed this opinion at a news conference in Irkutsk (Siberia) on Thursday. According to him, the virus of atypical pneumonia is a synthesis of two viruses (of measles and infectious parotiditis or mumps), the natural compound of which is impossible. This can be done only in a laboratory, the academician is convinced. He also said that in creating bacteriological weapons a protective anti-viral vaccine is, as a rule, worked out at the same time....

<p>The most chilling moment of my medical career occurred in 1985, when I led a program to test incoming U.S. Army recruits for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. At the time, little was known about the emerging HIV virus or AIDS. As I began to analyze blood samples from the first 600,000 recruits, I discovered that HIV had silently infected a large cross section of apparently healthy young adults. At that moment I realized that we were already losing the race to control the virus, and that the human species was destined to be afflicted with HIV as a fact of life -- and death -- for decades to come.</p>

The virus of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) can live for up to 15 days without the human body, Chinese scientists have discovered. According to Tuesday's China Daily, the Key Science and Technology Group under the National Task Force for SARS Control and Prevention revealed that the virus can exist in temperatures of 24 degrees Celsius for five days in patients' saliva, mucus andexcrement, 10 days in urine and 15 days in blood. It can live indoors for three days on paper, cotton cloth, wood, metal, plastic and glass surfaces and in soil. Experiments by the group indicate that the...

(CNSNews.com) - No one in the United States has been quarantined for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), nor is there any plan to do so at this time, experts testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Monday. President Bush signed an executive order on Friday adding SARS, the Asian super-virus, to the list of quarantinable diseases under the Public Health Service Act. "What the executive order does is give us the authority to quarantine for SARS in the same way that we can quarantine for other communicable diseases like cholera," Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers...

Virus detectives seek source of SARS in China's wild animals Researchers investigating the source of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) have turned their attention to the wild-animal markets of southern China. The move follows reports that workers and animals at the markets show high rates of infection with coronaviruses, the family to which the virus believed to cause SARS belongs. The possible link to wild animals emerged on 23 May 2003, when a team from the University of Hong Kong revealed that a coronavirus resembling the SARS virus had been isolated from 6 masked palm civets (_Paguma larvata_) and a...

The mystery virus which has claimed the lives of more than 100 people around the world is a mutant form of the common cold, say experts. Tests on samples taken from patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) suggest it is a new type of corona virus, which normally causes the common cold. It has so far infected at least 3,000 people worldwide and killed 106, according to the World Health Organization. Scientists have suggested the virus, for which there is no known cure, is here to stay and may never be eradicated in some regions. International scientists These latest...

HK reports two SARS cases, two deaths; coronavirus traced to civet cats  Hong Kong said Friday another two people have been infected with SARS and two more deaths have been recorded, marking the 20th day in a row that the territory's daily infection figures were in single digits. This brought the total number of deaths to 260 from 1,724 infections. The latest fatalities from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) were two women, aged 57 and 89. Health officials said the 89-year-old woman had chronic illnesses, while the 57-year-old woman was a resident at the residential Amoy Gardens, one of the...

Every week brings new questions about SARS--and sometimes, glimmers of answers. Last week, many of the questions centered on the genome of the new coronavirus believed to be the culprit. Since a Canadian research group first posted its entire sequence online on 13 April, genome information for nine other virus isolates has become available on the Web. Researchers around the world have devoured the genetic code like a pack of wolves, searching for clues to the virus's origins, behavior, and future. After press time this week, Science was set to publish online a paper analyzing the genome from the BCCA...

CORONAVIRUSES, ANIMAL: INAPPARENT INFECTION ************************************** Date: Wed 30 Apr 2003 From: Dr. Zhiru Guo I noticed that Canadian scientists found evidence of SARS virus in some "healthy control" people [see: "SARS - worldwide (69): diagnostic testing 20030425.1015"]. It is a puzzling finding. During investigation of the cause of bovine "sudden death syndrome" in past years, researchers in my institute also found coronavirus-like particles in ultrathin sections of several tissues of some clinically heathy animals, even in sections of hearts. A similar situation existed in pigs and dogs; it seems that coronavirus was a "normal parasite" of those "healthy animals." We...

TORONTO (CP) - Canadian testing for the coronavirus believed to cause SARS has turned up a troubling finding: a significant proportion of people who weren't diagnosed with SARS tested positive for the virus, the head of Health Canada's microbiology laboratory told an international congress on the disease Wednesday. Dr. Frank Plummer told scientists, public health officials and government authorities from Canada, the United States, Mexico, Britain and Southeast Asia that his lab has found the virus in specimens from about 14 per cent of people who were under investigation for SARS but who never met the case definition. Some had...

China Announces New SARS Deaths, Asian Leaders MeetBy Scott Hillis and Nopporn Wong-Anan BEIJING/BANGKOK (Reuters) - China reported nine more SARS deaths and more than 200 new cases on Tuesday as Asian heads of government gathered to fight an outbreak that has killed hundreds, curbed travel and threatened economic growth. The Chinese Health Ministry said seven of the new deaths were in Beijing, the hardest hit place in the world, along with 152 of the latest cases. The WHO's chief of communicable diseases, David Heymann, in Bangkok to brief and advise the Asian leaders, told Reuters on the eve of...

SCIENTISTS searching for a cure for severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) have suffered a setback after finding that the virus blamed for the potentially fatal disease was not present in most patients taken ill. The World Health Organisation announced last week that the corona virus — responsible for the common cold — was at the root of the epidemic of a virulent strain of pneumonia. But Dr Frank Plummer, scientific director of the Canadian National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, refuted the claim yesterday after weeks of intensive research into the disease that has killed 14 people in Toronto. “Only 40...

3.15pm update Sars death toll rises to 235 Staff and agenciesTuesday April 22, 2003 A further 17 people across Asia died of severe acute respiratory syndrome today, as officials in China, which has been accused of underreporting cases of the flu-like virus, were ordered to step up efforts to fight the disease. Eleven of today's Sars deaths came from China, where it is believed the deadly virus originated. Today, schoolchildren in Hong Kong returned to class wearing surgical masks, following a three-week closure in response to the outbreak.Worldwide, the death toll rose to 235 and the number of infections...

Panic grips Beijing as leaders admit tenfold rise in Sars infection rates By Jasper Becker in Beijing 21 April 2003 China sacked its Health Minister and the mayor of Beijing yesterday and cancelled a week-long May Day holiday after suddenly increasing the figure for Sars cases in the capital.Beijing has more than 700 confirmed and unconfirmed cases, ten times more than initially admitted, putting it among the communities hit hardest in the world, behind only Guangdong province and Hong Kong. Even now there are doubts whether all the figures in China have been revealed.The government's actions come after an emergency...

NITED NATIONS, April 15 — Monkeys experimentally infected with a new coronavirus have developed an illness similar to the mysterious human respiratory disease SARS, and it is now almost certain that the coronavirus causes the disease, a World Health Organization official said here today. Dr. David L. Heymann, executive director in charge of communicable diseases for W.H.O., said the agency "is 99 percent sure" that SARS is caused by the new coronavirus based on the monkey experiments in the Netherlands. Experiments on animals are necessary because the lack of an effective treatment for SARS and the relatively high death rate...

It's time I went to my favorite shopping district, Manhattan's Chinatown, and picked up some "donta" (Chinese egg custard), fresh seafood, and roast duck for my family. But going there could potentially kill us all. Since I don't live in China, Hanoi, Toronto or Singapore, I may sound paranoid. And yet, I'll take that chance. The majority of Chinatown's inhabitants hail from China's Guangdong Province, which is Ground Zero for "SARS" – Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, often erroneously described as "pneumonia" or "atypical pneumonia." Illegal Chinese immigrants constantly arrive in Chinatown, largely from Guangdong Province. People also constantly travel...

HONG KONG, April 8 — Health officials in Hong Kong and Singapore warned their citizens today that the agent that causes a mysterious respiratory disease has spread so far in their communities and abroad that it will be hard to bring under control any time soon, if ever. "Singaporeans must be psychologically prepared for the problem to stay with us for some time," said Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore's deputy prime minister. Hong Kong and Singapore officials began emphasizing new measures to slow the spread of the disease, but refrained from suggestions that they might be able to get rid of...