Date: Fri 28 Nov 2003
From: ProMED-mail
Source: The Lancet, vol. 362, no. 9398, Fri 29 Nov 2003 [edited]
Hong Kong: Genotype of the SARS coronavirus from the Amoy Gardens outbreak
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[The following is the summary of a Research Letter in the current issue of the Lancet, in which the authors conclude that the different features of the hospital-based outbreak and the Amoy Gardens outbreak are the result of extraneous factors rather than differences in virus genotype. - Mod.CP]
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a global health concern. In Hong Kong, 2 major outbreaks, one hospital-based and the other in the Amoy Gardens apartments, were identified. The frequency of diarrhoea, admission to intensive care, and mortality differed significantly between the 2 outbreaks. We carried out genomic sequencing for viral isolates from 5 Amoy Gardens patients. The virus sequence was identical in 4 of these 5 patients. The sequence data from one hospital case and the 4 identical community cases had only 3 nucleotide differences. Alterations in the SARS coronavirus genome are unlikely to have caused the distinctive clinical features of the Amoy Gardens patients, and these results highlight the importance of non-viral genomic factors in this outbreak.
(By S S C Chim, S K W Tsui, K C A Chan, T C C Au, E C W Hung, Y K Tong, R W K Chiu, E K O Ng, P K S Chan, C M Chu, J J Y Sung, J S Tam, K P Fung, M M Y Waye, C Y Lee, K Y Yuen, Y M D Lo, and members of the CUHK Molecular SARS Research Group. From the Departments of Chemical Pathology (S S C Chim PhD, K C A Chan MRCP, Y K Tong MPhil, R W K Chiu MB, E K O Ng PhD, Prof Y M D Lo DM), Biochemistry (S K W Tsui PhD, T C C Au MPhil, K P Fung PhD, M M Y Waye PhD, Prof C Y Lee PhD), Paediatrics (E C W Hung MB), Microbiology (P K S Chan MRCPath, J S Tam PhD), and Medicine and Therapeutics (Prof J J Y Sung MD), Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong, China; Department of Medicine, United Christian Hospital, Hong Kong (C M Chu FRCP); and Department of Microbiology, Queen Mary Hospital, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (Prof K Y Yuen MD)