Thanks for the information! I seem to recall that SARS had some sort of appearance in a laboratory though.
You're right about the lab. I don't recall all the details,but an official-who was making a big show of peering through a microscope,but didn't know what he was doing-knocked over the specimens he was "studying",and walked away-presumably leaving the cleanup to subordinates.
The spill was discovered hours later. By then, a large number of people had been exposed, including those the party official was in contact with-when he boarded an airplane.
I did a little googling. Don't know what the final out come was, but from this article and many others, it was suspected that SARS was linked to civet cats in Guangdong province and Guangzhou markets.
http://www.mongabay.com/external/china-2004_civit_kill.html