X-Message-Number: 21422
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: Toronto Star: Researchers may have cornered mystery virus
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 17:24:29 -0800



http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?GXHC_gx_session_id_=1b7e23d937fde40f&pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1035779483106&call_pageid=968332188492

Mar. 18, 2003. 05:52 PM

Researchers may have cornered mystery virus
Two Torontonians have died from respiratory ailment known as SARS

HELEN BRANSWELL
CANADIAN PRESS

A potential source of the mystery illness that has been worrying public 
health officials around the globe may have been identified.

Scientists in Germany and possibly Hong Kong appear to have isolated what 
looks like a paramyxovirus, a member of a large family of viruses that cause 
ailments ranging from measles and mumps to many respiratory conditions.

While it's too early to say if this is the culprit responsible for sudden 
acute respiratory syndrome or SARS, infectious disease experts in Canada say 
it is plausible this is the pathogen scientists around the world have been 
desperately seeking.

"It's completely believable," said Dr. Brian Ward, an infectious disease 
specialist at McGill University in Montreal. "It's pretty compelling."

Researchers at the Institute for Medical Virology at Germany's Frankfurt 
University reported today they had seen something resembling a paramyxovirus 
in samples taken from two SARS patients there.

Such a finding would be considered interesting and important, but not solid 
proof. Other teams examining specimens from other patients would also have 
to find the same virus before the scientific community could begin to 
believe that the German researchers had indeed discovered the cause of the 
mysterious ailment.

There was an unconfirmed report today that a team from Hong Kong has also 
seen what looked like a paramyxovirus in specimens from SARS patients.

Microbiologists at a Toronto hospital treating two of Canada's 11 probable 
and suspected cases of SARS received a report from a colleague in Hong Kong 
in which he said he had identified what appeared to be paramyxovirus 
particles in some SARS specimens.

The virologist, from the Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong, was not 
immediately available to comment.

But Dr. Andrew Simor, who read the report, said the second finding 
strengthens the case that the pathogen involved is a paramyxovirus.

"It makes it seem like it might be more likely," said Simor, head of 
microbiology at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre. "It's 
still early. But it's another piece of evidence that may be helpful."

Laboratories around the world have been scrambling to try to discover what 
is causing the disease the World Health Organization has called a worldwide 
health threat.

Since early March, at least 219 people in countries around the world have 
fallen ill with a mysterious pneumonia, the cause of which could not be 
pinpointed. Four people have died, including two in Canada.

An earlier outbreak in the Chinese province of Guangdong has since come to 
light. That outbreak, which began in late November and peaked in 
mid-February, sickened about 300 people and killed five.






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