New Virus May Jump More Easily to Humans

Jan. 7, 2004

HONG KONG - Recent genetic studies in Hong Kong have detected small but significant changes in the Sars virus isolated from civet cats that suggest it may jump more easily to humans, a leading microbiologist said yesterday.

Professor Yuen Kwok Yung, head of the microbiology department of the Hong Kong University's medical faculty, said recent samples of the Sars virus taken from the cats showed more similarities to the human form than samples taken from the animals during the last outbreak.

'There is some genetic evidence that this new virus from the civet cats... is moving towards the human Sars coronavirus,' said Prof Yuen, whose team identified the civet cat as the prime suspect of the source of the Sars epidemic in May last year.

'We fear that may mean higher transmissibility to humans. That looks a little sinister,' he told Reuters in an interview.

Prof Yuen's team helped analyse samples taken from a 32-year-old Chinese television producer from Guangdong province, who was confirmed on Monday as having the deadly disease.

Prof Yuen stressed that researchers did not yet have enough information about the virulence of this latest strain of the Sars virus isolated from the civet cat, which can be deadly for humans but which does not cause the animal to fall sick.

'The medical behaviour and the virulence of the virus can only be known if you have hundreds of people coming down with the illness,' he said.

The Chinese authorities have ordered a cull of all civet cats in Guangdong and have banned the farming, trade, transportation and consumption of the animal.

Unlike last year, Chinese officials are better prepared this time round in the face of the killer disease.

Since the first wave of the epidemic petered out in July, the authorities in Guangzhou city have set up facilities from hospitals to hotlines to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

The respiratory disease, which killed 349 people in China last year, sparked unprecedented panic and forced the authorities to channel large amounts of cash into its decrepit public health system.

In the most ambitious of the projects announced so far, the government has said it will spend 11 billion yuan (S$2.3 billion) on a country-wide response system.

In Hong Kong, where 299 people died of the disease last year, steps have been taken to tighten health checks on people arriving from Guangdong.

Yesterday, security guards stood at hospital entrances, ensuring all visitors wore masks.

In Taipei, Dr Su Ih-jen, chief of Taiwan's Centre for Disease Control, said China's latest Sars case was particularly worrying because it came as thousands of Taiwanese working in China are preparing to return home for the Chinese New Year. -- Reuters, AFP, AP

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