SARS - The Beginning Of The End?

[SensoVision]

victims of deadly virus SARS keep spreading, and recently it mutated to new form... read article about this:
"SARS Virus Mutating Quickly Into 2 Forms
Sat May 3,10:35 AM ET  Add Health - AP to My Yahoo!

By MARGARET WONG, Associated Press Writer

HONG KONG - Like a "murderer who is trying to change his fingerprints," the SARS (news - web sites) virus is mutating rapidly into at least two forms, complicating efforts to develop a solid diagnosis and a vaccine, researchers say.

Scientists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong say they analyzed the genetic sequences of virus samples taken from 11 SARS patients and found by late March that two forms of the virus were present in Hong Kong.

One strain was detected in a woman whose illness was linked to an outbreak caused by a mainland Chinese man who spread SARS to others at a Hong Kong hotel.

The other strain came from a Hong Kong man believed to have caught it in the mainland border city of Shenzhen.

"This rapid evolution is like that of a murderer who is trying to change his fingerprints or even his appearance to try to escape detection," said Dr. Dennis Lo, a chemical pathologist at the university.

But while Lo said researchers have shown "the SARS coronavirus is undergoing rapid evolution in our population," he noted more work is needed before researchers can say whether the virus has become more infectious and lethal.

Researchers also need to find out whether people who get SARS from one strain can develop immunity to other strains, he said. If not, finding ways to better diagnose it and to develop a vaccine could be more difficult.

The World Health Organization (news - web sites) says there's no evidence that the mutations have any effect on the disease itself. WHO scientists also say it's not surprising the SARS bug shows genetic changes, because the coronavirus family is prone to mutations.

A U.S. coronavirus expert, David Brian, at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, agreed that a rapidly mutating SARS virus could complicate work toward a vaccine and reliable diagnostic tests.

The crucial question is where the mutations occur in the SARS virus genome, he said. If they affect the shape of an outer protein on the virus, it could hamper vaccines, which rely on training the immune system to recognize particular protein shapes, he said.

Diagnosis, meanwhile, is based on specific features of the bug's genetic sequence. So if one of the crucial features is removed by mutation, the detection kit becomes less sensitive to recognizing the virus, he said.

Hong Kong scientists are also concerned that the virus may survive in an infected person's body for at least a month after recovery. Doctors are urging patients to avoid personal contact such as hugging and kissing when they go home.

"The virus still exists in the patients' urine and stool after they were discharged. It will persist for at least another month or maybe even longer," said Dr. Joseph Sung, head of the Department of Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

What's more, scientists here also fear that 12 people may have relapsed. The new findings raise questions as to how doctors can tell whether a patient has fully recovered, underscoring the difficulty health authorities face in tackling this new disease.

Sung, who works at the Prince of Wales Hospital, which was hard-hit by SARS, has monitored the cases of about 240 recovered SARS patients. He said none has spread the disease to others.

If recovered patients wear masks, avoid close contact with family members and are particularly careful about toilet hygiene, things should be "quite safe" in their households, he said.

Sung believes the virus can survive in the environment longer than a day. "If your saliva gets on a table surface, don't assume that it will be all right after it dries up," he said.
Dr. David Heymann, WHO's chief of communicable diseases, said the relapses are disappointing, and it's not clear what caused them. He said he hadn't heard of similar reports outside Hong Kong.

"We don't yet have the data ... as to exactly what has happened, what these people were treated with," Heymann said. He said one theory is that some relapses may have happened because patients stopped taking steroids too quickly. The steroid therapy is being prescribed in Hong Kong.

Heymann said in some other infectious diseases, it's not uncommon to find virus in body excretions after a patient's symptoms are gone.

"So it's not a new phenomenon that viruses remain, but certainly a relapse is concerning," he said.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE: Associated Press writer Helen Luk in Hong Kong and Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this story.

___

On the Net:

World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/csr/sars/en/

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites):

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/sars/ "

this article could be found here: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030503/ap_on_he_me/sars_virus_mutations_8

[Queen Bee]

That's terrible... It's like a new-age leprosy.

[Sam14]

I live in Taiwan and S.A.R.S seems to be getting under control.

[SensoVision]

Hi Sam14, glad to hear this, but e.g. in Russia and Ukraine it seems that SARS exist but noone want to talk about it in order to escape panic which make problem even more serious as people don't take any precatuions measure...

[M.Cabre]

Dammit!! Okay, I live in SARS Central Canada (read: Toronto) and really, it's NOT as big of an issue as the media is making it out to be. Yes, it's a nasty disease, but the reality of it is that perhaps less than 5-10% of the population might catch it, and less than 5% of those who get it MAY die from it, but that only happens if your immune system is shit already (ie: really old people, or babies) and can't fight it off. These odds are based in Canada, FWIW... SARS here is under control, and the cases are dropping off at a pretty quick pace.

[Sam14]

Yeah some countries cover it up. Like in China One of my friends has been writing me from there and ther are alot more ppl dieing then the Chiness media is willing to say. I mean the Chinese news is insane. When I was visiting China I would watch the news on tv , and the way the say it it would seem like nothing bad ever happends in China. There was never news of anything bad that happend. The Chinese want there country to seem perfect.

[SensoVision]

Yeah some countries cover it up. Like in China One of my friends has been writing me from there and ther are alot more ppl dieing then the Chiness media is willing to say. I mean the Chinese news is insane. When I was visiting China I would watch the news on tv , and the way the say it it would seem like nothing bad ever happends in China. There was never news of anything bad that happend. The Chinese want there country to seem perfect.

they probably learn this practice about good news from former USSR... for long years nothing bad happen here if believe to news...

[White Wolf]

There was never news of anything bad that happend. The Chinese want there country to seem perfect.

Sounds like alot of goverments
Including my own at the politic level anyways.

[M.Cabre]

There was never news of anything bad that happend. The Chinese want there country to seem perfect.

Here, there was only bad news for a while.. For some reason, our media seriously thought that the people actually wanted to hear about the drama involved in the matter.  

[warning9]

I got a Package from hongkong yesterday... i thing i might burn it...

[SensoVision]

I almost forgot about this plagues but seems that it doesn't disappear from the face of the earth.. have just spot the news about it:
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/CalgarySun/News/2004/04/23/433148.html

BEIJING -- China reported two suspected cases of SARS yesterday. One was in Beijing and the other in the eastern province of Anhui -- the first cases in those areas since the country's initial outbreak of the potentially deadly disease subsided last summer.

Though the cases are from different parts of the country, it is believed they are linked.

"We do think there's a link, but it hasn't been confirmed yet," Maria Cheng of the World Health Organization said from Geneva.

Aggie Adamczyk, of Health Canada, said the department is monitoring the situation.

Adamczyk said quarantine officers at Canada's international airports remain vigilant for signs of illness among travellers returning from Asia and other destinations abroad.

The patient in Beijing, a 20-year-old nurse, was quarantined in hospital.

She was confirmed as a suspected SARS case yesterday after being in intensive care since April 14.

The nurse is reported to have worked in a hospital where a woman from Anhui was recently treated for atypical pneumonia.

If the nurse got SARS from the Anhui woman, it would be the first recorded case of human-to-human transmission of SARS since last July.