Posted on 05/25/2003 7:26:25 AM PDT by CathyRyan
Researchers in southern China who traced the virus that causes SARS to the endangered civet cat, said SARS anti-bodies have been found in traders of wild animals who did not develop the symptoms of the disease, according to press reports seen yesterday.
Researchers found SARS anti-bodies in five traders of wild animals, but none of them developed any symptoms of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), He Yaqing, deputy director of the Shenzhen Centre for Disease Control, told Saturday's Yangcheng Evening News.
The findings suggest that the form of the coronavirus that is suspected to have jumped from either the civet cat or the raccoon dog to humans was actually less lethal than the SARS coronavirus transmitted between humans that has gone on to kill at least 696 and infected more than 8000 worldwide.
After jumping from the animals, the SARS virus must have undergone changes that made it more lethal to humans, the researcher said.
"The survey of wild animal traders with SARS anti-bodies shows that these traders once had SARS, and while curing themselves without showing any clear symptoms, were infected recessively," the report said.
The report did not say how many traders were tested for SARS anti-bodies, nor was it clear if the traders were a source of transmission of the global SARS epidemic.
However, the researchers said the traders were not infectious after they had recovered.
Of the five traders, four worked with rabbits, cats and other wild animals, while one of them worked with poultry and other wild birds, the report said.
Researchers have long suspected that a new strain of the coronavirus, long known as a cause of the common cold, was the behind the SARS epidemic.
On Friday they announced a nearly 100 per cent similarity between the SARS coronavirus and that found in civet cats and raccoons.
Meanwhile Hong Kong plans to collect faeces from civic cats to test them for SARS following scientists' discovery of the virus in the weasel-like animal eaten by some Chinese, officials said yesterday.
People in the territory are reportedly abandoning their house cats following research that may link the SARS outbreak to civets. Civets are not true cats, but they look like them.
People started taking their pet cats to grooming shops and leaving them, an animal cruelty society official was quoted yesterday as saying.
Cat owners left fake phone numbers and never returned to pick up their pets, according to a South China Morning Post report that quoted Dr Pauline Taylor, acting executive director of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
No one was available for comment at the SPCA when an Associated Press reporter phoned yesterday.
Hong Kong researchers said Friday they had found the virus in civet cats in China's Guangdong province, which neighbours Hong Kong, and they believed SARS jumped from the animals to humans.
Conservation workers in Hong Kong will collect faeces samples left by the mainly nocturnal creatures in the wild and have them tested for the SARS virus - a member of the coronavirus family - said Susanna Ho, a spokeswoman for the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department.
As a precaution, Hong Kong announced Saturday it would temporarily ban the import of civet meat and officials warned people to stay away from the few civet cats living here in the wild.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome has killed 266 and sickened 1724 in Hong Kong, but the outbreak here appears to have been brought under control. The World Health Organisation on Friday lifted an advisory that people stay away from Hong Kong.
On Saturday authorities reported no new infections for the first time since starting to compile statistics in March.
People have started shedding their surgical masks and resuming normal activity.
And Singapore was culling stray cats as part of a nationwide cleanup campaign sparked by the SARS crisis, a spokesman said at the weekend.
Hong Kong researchers announced on Friday that they believe SARS may have jumped to humans from civet cats, cat-like creatures from the same animal family as ferrets that are considered a delicacy in parts of southern China.
However, Singapore authorities denied they were hunting stray cats out of fear that they cause SARS.
The culling is part of an overall hygiene campaign launched on May 6 in response to the SARS outbreak, said an official of Singapore's food and animal control authority on customary condition of anonymity.
The flu-like disease has killed 31 people and infected 206 people in the city state.
Authorities estimate that more than 80,000 stray cats roam the island of 4 million people, the food and animal control authority said in a statement.
The government has "intensified culling of stray cats in their estates, especially at food centres, markets and areas affected by cat nuisance problems," the statement said.
Officials began the crackdown on stray cats on Thursday and killed 55 cats in the first two days of the campaign, the spokesman said.
The cats are being taken to the agency's main animal control centre, where they are euthanised, the spokesman said.
Animal rights groups have said they are disappointed that cats are being killed and have asked the government to reconsider the campaign.
"We regret that the government has decided upon such extreme measures," Lynn Yeo, president of Singapore's Cat Welfare Society was quoted as telling the Straits Times.
The hygiene campaign is part of Singapore's efforts to persuade the World Health Organisation and other countries that it has brought the SARS outbreak under control.
SARS has battered Singapore's economy. Visitor numbers fell 67 per cent last month from a year earlier and the government has slashed its economic growth forecast to 0.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent from 2 per cent to 5 per cent.
AFP, AP
I really wonder why a centralized government like China can't get this SARS thing and for that matter influenza under control by a decree to wash your hands and to keep the ducks out of the house.
The animal traders are wild?
A detailed genetic analysis of the virus isolated from the animals found it was identical to the SARS virus from human patients except that it lacked one sequence. The missing genetic material carries instructions for the production of a small protein, known as a peptide, and may have been the change that allowed the virus to jump to humans and then spread readily, Stohr said.
"The lack of this peptide may have helped the virus transmit efficiently from human to human," Stohr said. "Perhaps that missing piece of protein is just the trick, the little difference between a harmless animal virus and a human pathogen. That's a bit of speculation, but this is one hypothesis."
By the way, I wonder if that peptide is the protein in the virus's coating that is said to behave like a protein in the HIV virus. Could the human SARS coronavirus be a product of lab work putting together the civet coronavirus and the HIV retrovirus?
Do they have a lot of civets in India? Is that what you mean?
Thanks but, Atlanta is about 250 miles from here.
"On Friday they announced a nearly 100 per cent similarity between the SARS coronavirus and that found in civet cats and raccoons."
"nearly" and "similarity" does not indicate a 100% match. As written, the statement has no meaning at all.
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