Airborne transmission of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus (CoV) has been the favored explanation for its transmission on an aircraft [1] and appeared to explain a large community outbreak of SARS in the Amoy Gardens in Hong Kong [2]. The article by Booth et al. in this issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases [3] suggests that airborne dissemination of SARS-CoV may al...

Sir—Cui et al. [1] recently described pronounced lymphopenia and low counts of CD4 + cells, CD8 + cells, and B cells in patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). On the basis of these low cell counts, Cui et al. [1] suggested that SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) might damage lymphocytes and concluded that the immune system was impaired during the course of SARS. However, Cui et al. [1...

The sudden appearance and potential lethality of severe acute respiratory syndrome associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in humans has focused attention on understanding its origins. Here, we assess phylogenetic relationships for the SARS-CoV lineage as well as the history of host-species shifts for SARS-CoV and other coronaviruses. We used a Bayesian phylogenetic inference approach with sliding wi...

BACKGROUND The SARS outbreak of 2002-2003 presented clinicians with a new, life-threatening disease for which they had no experience in treating and no research on the effectiveness of treatment options. The World Health Organization (WHO) expert panel on SARS treatment requested a systematic review and comprehensive summary of treatments used for SARS-infected patients in order to guide future...

OBJECTIVES To determine the clinical and radiological features of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and to evaluate the accuracy of the World Health Organization's guidelines on defining cases of SARS. DESIGN Prospective observational study. SETTING A newly set up SARS screening clinic in the emergency department of a university hospital in Hong Kong's New Territories. PARTICIPANTS...

BACKGROUND Definitive early-stage diagnosis of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is important despite the number of laboratory tests that have been developed to complement clinical features and epidemiologic data in case definition. Pathologic changes in response to viral infection might be reflected in proteomic patterns in sera of SARS patients. METHODS We developed a mass spectromet...

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is caused by the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV). There are many point mutations among SARS-CoV genome sequences. Previous studies suggested that the mutations are correlated closely with the SARS epidemic. It was found that the bases of six nucleotide positions (nt9404, nt9479, nt19838, nt21721, nt22222 and nt27827) with high-mutation rate have an important...

BACKGROUND It has been postulated that genetic predisposition may influence the susceptibility to SARS-coronavirus infection and disease outcomes. A recent study has suggested that the deletion allele (D allele) of the angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) gene is associated with hypoxemia in SARS patients. Moreover, the ACE D allele has been shown to be more prevalent in patients suffering from ...

BACKGROUND Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) remains a significant public health concern after the epidemic in 2003. Human monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) that neutralize SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) could provide protection for exposed individuals. METHODS Transgenic mice with human immunoglobulin genes were immunized with the recombinant major surface (S) glycoprotein ectodoma...

A dysregulated innate immune response and exuberant cytokine/chemokine expression are believed to be critical factors in the pathogenesis of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), caused by a coronavirus (SARS-CoV). However, we recently showed that inefficient immune activation and a poor virus-specific T cell response underlie severe disease in SARS-CoV-infected mice. Here, we extend these ...