13 Facts About SARS

In December 2019, another strain of SARS-CoV was identified as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 .

Primary route of transmission for SARS-CoV is contact of the mucous membranes with respiratory droplets or fomites.

SARS-CoV is most infectious in severely ill patients, which usually occurs during the second week of illness.

Treatment of SARS is mainly supportive with antipyretics, supplemental oxygen and mechanical ventilation as needed.

SARS epidemic began in the Guangdong province of China in November 2002.

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In early April 2003, after a prominent physician, Jiang Yanyong, pushed to report the danger to China, there appeared to be a change in official policy when SARS began to receive a much greater prominence in the official media.

Local transmission of SARS took place in Toronto, Ottawa, San Francisco, Ulaanbaatar, Manila, Singapore, Taiwan, Hanoi and Hong Kong whereas within China it spread to Guangdong, Jilin, Hebei, Hubei, Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Shanxi, Tianjin, and Inner Mongolia.

SARS subsequently contracted the disease himself, and died in March 2003.

Scientists at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands demonstrated that the SARS coronavirus fulfilled Koch's postulates thereby suggesting it as the causative agent.

Phylogenetic analysis of these viruses indicated a high probability that SARS coronavirus originated in bats and spread to humans either directly or through animals held in Chinese markets.

In late 2006, scientists from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention of Hong Kong University and the Guangzhou Centre for Disease Control and Prevention established a genetic link between the SARS coronavirus appearing in civets and in the second, 2004 human outbreak, bearing out claims that the disease had jumped across species.

In 2019, a similar virus to SARS caused a cluster of infections in Wuhan, eventually leading to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Study of live SARS specimens requires a biosafety level 3 facility; some studies of inactivated SARS specimens can be done at biosafety level 2 facilities.