[syriacus]

See also (on FR) SARS a combination of bacteria and virus

[AntiGuv]

I thought Chlamydia was sexually transmitted; wouldn't the epidemiological profile look completely different?

[jacquej]

Maybe someone who knows can help me here. I thought that chlamydia was a sexually transmitted diease. Given that frame of reference, how does it become airborne and capable of infecting people?

Does this suggest that this, if it is the causative agent in SARS, could be biowarfare, or an escape from a bioweapons research program?

Hoping some expert can explain this works.

[maestro]

Does this cross from animals to humans?

Is this from pigs?

?...from the... 'swine-flu-vaccine' ...?

[jammer]

Odd that Reuters would call Chlamydia a virus in the article. I suspect the author is in over his/her head.

[TooBusy]

Why the abreviated article?

China: SARS May Be Linked to Chlamydia-Like Agent
Fri April 4, 2003 09:49 AM ET
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's center for disease control said on Friday it suspects a chlamydia-like agent caused an outbreak of a flu-like virus that has killed 82 people and infected over 2,400 worldwide.

"We're 80 percent sure," Hong Tao, a researcher with the Institute of Virology under the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told a news conference.

The center studied samples of victims' lungs, livers, kidneys and other organs which showed a chlamydia-like agent appeared to have caused the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Hong said.

In Geneva, a spokesman for the World Health Organization said the U.N. agency was "99 percent" certain SARS was caused by a previously unknown strain belonging to the coronavirus family, a major cause of the common cold.

However, until it was absolutely certain, the possibility that some other virus, including chlamydia, also played a role could not be ruled out.

Hong told the Beijing news conference the agent most likely came from animals, but it was not known what kind.

SARS has killed 46 people and infected 1,191 in China since November when it first surfaced in the southern province of Guangdong, and then went on to spread around the globe in March. (Reporting by Dai Shasha in Beijing, Richard Waddington in Geneva)

[Cicero]

On an earlier thread, posters stated that although chlamydia is most familiar in its form as an STD, it can also take the form of an air-born germ causing pneumonia. In the case of SARS, it is not transmitted sexually, according to this theory, but through the air or presumably from infected surfaces, hands, etc.

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

I am confused.

Forgive me if I don't remember this correctly, but it was my understanding that SARS was originally said to be a form of the virus which causes the common cold.

Can anyone tell me if the cold virus and clamydia virus really are *that* similiar?

And if truth be told, I'm finding myself becoming increasingly uneasy at hearing the daily SARS-related information.

[cmsgop]

It comes in bottles too !!!!!!!!