SARS virus found to survive for weeks outside human body

Sydney Morning Herald ^ | May 5 2003

[dead]

Geneva: New research into the deadly SARS virus shows that it is more resilient than first thought and can survive for weeks outside the human body.

The research, published by the Geneva-based World Health Organisation, suggests that Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome - a flu-like epidemic that has killed at least 449 people worldwide - might be able to be spread through contact with contaminated objects and not just through direct contact with an infected person.

The SARS virus can survive for hours on common surfaces outside the human body, and up to four days in human waste, according to the research carried out in laboratories in Hong Kong, Japan and Germany.

At sub-zero temperatures, such as in a regular refrigerator, the virus showed only "minimal reduction" after three weeks.

Scientists found that the disease persists in adult faeces for six hours but in human diarrhoea for up to four days. This could explain the disease's spread in a 33-storey apartment building in Hong Kong where hundreds were infected.

Researchers now suspect it was spread at the Amoy Gardens complex by a SARS-infected man with diarrhoea, via a crack in a sewage pipe.

Densely populated Hong Kong has been badly hit by the virus. Five more SARS fatalities and eight new cases were reported there Sunday, pushing the local toll to 184 deaths and 1,629 infections.

Only mainland China has been worst hit. Beijing took strict measures to contain the SARS outbreak in its capital Sunday, placing close to 16,000 people under quarantine.

China also sacked officials nationwide for failing to implement tough measures to contain the deadly disease as the health ministry reported seven new deaths from the pneumonia-like respiratory illness and 163 new infections. There are now some 197 dead and 4,125 confirmed or probable cases in the world's most populous country.

The capital city Beijing has borne the brunt of the epidemic in China, with 100 deaths and at least 1,803 known cases.

The good news is that standard disinfectants such as chlorine bleach killed the virus in five minutes, WHO found.

Temperatures of 56 degrees centigrade and above also quickly destroy the virus, the WHO said in a report published on its website on Sunday.

"It's the first time we have hard data on the survival of the virus. Before, we were just speculating," Klaus Stohr, WHO's top SARS scientist, told the Washington Post

"These studies are very important for designing strategies for cleaning and disinfecting."

The new data suggest that infection can occur simply from touching a contaminated table or doorknob, the report said.

Outside of China, SARS deaths and infections appear to be stablilising. Singapore and Taiwan reported one new SARS death each on Sunday, bringing their respective death tolls to 26 and eight, though Singaporean officials said they had included one non-SARS related fatality in its toll.

AFP

[nonliberal]

I am REALLY beginning to wonder if there wasn't a hole in someone's chem suit at a Chinese bioweapons lab.

[battlecry]

It looks like a weapon, it works like a weapon, it ...

[Frank_Discussion]

Yow.

[11B3]

That was my first thought as well. Now, however, I'm thinking that maybe the Russians sent it to China. They haven't had any cases yet, which seems odd. Just as odd that China has had no "terrorist" attacks. Either way, it seems to be an 'engineered' virus.

[DB]

Or the lab simply leaked. The Chinese are cutting a lot of corners trying to catch up with the west. Cutting corners while experimenting with virus gene splicing is highly dangerous...

[Trust but Verify]

I really don't know what to make of all this stuff. If it can live for so long, then it must not be very virulent or many, many, many more people would have been infected. Either that or the vast majority of people infected do not become ill.

In all cases of full-blown SARS that I've heard of, the source can be traced to known contact with an infected person.

[Justa]

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. It keeps mutating but it still maintains it's essential features and lethality. One would suspect it would mutate into an easily transmitted, non-lethal virus. I'm no microbiologist but I wonder if it doesn't have the DNA of a disease inside the virus where the host corona virus's RNA easily mutates but the DNA of it's 'package' doesn't. The immune system would code to attack the virus but constant mutations would provide the disease an endless succession of viral strains to spread to.

Just a thought.

[CathyRyan]

Just to throw something out to be kicked around. Are we compairing the old sars habits with the mutated sars. When sars first started being studied it was found to only last 3 hours outside the body. This new mutation is longer so we may have to wait to see if infection rates change. We may be looking at old infection rates with the old virus. Just a thought.

[Fitzcarraldo]

I never imagined the name of the next Chinese ICBM would be "WALMART".

[ModelBreaker]

It's not clear to me why the facts in the article suggest that SARS is a bioweapon.

Why would I design a bioweapon to transmit by the relatively inefficient means of doorknobs and feces? That makes it possible to contain the disease and makes the developed world much less susceptible to pandemic than the supposed perps in China or the mideast. Cholera, eg, is a terrible problem in less developed countries. It is almost nonexistent in countries with good sewage disposal systems because it transmits by feces.

If one wanted to manufacture a good bioweapon, it would transmit like the flu. That is, airborn droplets from sneezes. Had SARS transmitted in that manner, we would have worldwide pandemic today.

It's possible that this is a bioweapon. But I haven't seen any evidence to date that suggests it is anything other than just another nasty, new virus out of the viral breeding fields in Southern China.

[Trust but Verify]

I don't know, but the virus does not seem very communicable outside of 'personalized' exposure. There also have been no new outbreaks outside of China. God only knows what is really going on there.

[Trust but Verify]

I don't buy the bio-weapon theory at all. Same as I didn't buy West Nile as bio-weapon.

[IYAAYAS]

Anyone care to venture a guess what they do at Sverdlovsk? 10 points to the winner!



A ProMED-mail post

ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases


Date: 19 Nov 2001
From: ProMED-mail
Source: Interfax Moscow, 15 Nov 2001 [edited]


One hundred & eighty nine residents of Kachkanar, in Russia's Sverdlovsk
Region in the Urals, 90% of whom are children, have contracted an
infectious pneumonia whose origin is unknown to doctors.

The outbreak began in a number of town schools in late September [2001],
sources in the sanitary and epidemiological department of the Sverdlovsk
Region told Interfax. The disease's origin is still unknown, but it is
curable.

Epidemiologists fear that some of the infected have not been reported.
Early phases of the disease look like an average upper respiratory
infection, and patients come to see the doctor only after the symptoms
develop into a grave case of pneumonia.

Measures against epidemics are being taken in Kachkanar schools.
Bactericidal lamps are being installed, and additional instructions are
being given to school doctors.

--
ProMED-mail

[aristeides]

There was that odd case of atypical pneumonia in Smolensk in 2001 (?) that flutters put in the list of SARS threads.

[aristeides]

Oops, I should have said Sverdlovsk, not Smolensk.

[Dark Wing]

FYI

[The Pheonix]

Just heard a piece of good news on CNN TV , and that is Singapore has not has a new SARS case for the last 48 hours. They are keeping thair fingers crowed

[per loin]

Russia has four cases near the Chinese border, and today closed the border with China.

[miyamoto]

If it were an engineered bioweapon, then they would have had the genetic code months ago rather than just recently