SARS and Other Coronaviruses – Dave Cavanagh

SARS – and Other Coronaviruses

The year 2003 was the year when the name “coronavirus” went around the world, somewhat further than the virus that sparked panic: severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV). It was spread rapidly by international, indeed transcontinental, travelers from its epicenter in China. The high mortality rate, around 10% among clinical cases, and the particularly high price paid by health care workers, spread fear globally. Public health facilities were stretched to the limit, and the effect on local economies was immense. Never before had
a coronavirus made such an impact on the lives of the human population.
SARS enhanced interest in coronaviruses generally, including the hunt not only for SARS-CoV-like viruses in wild animals, but also for unrelated coronaviruses in wild and semi-domesticated animals. Prior to SARS we knew of only a dozen or so coronavirus species but it was always likely that there were many more. Coronavirologists knew, from decades of experience, that coronaviruses could be devastating, causing mortality, especially among young, and high economic loss among domestic animals. Moreover, they knew that a given coronavirus species was not limited to replication in one host species. Thus the potential existed for the spread of novel coronaviruses from wild animals to domestic animals and to man. It is with this potent threat in mind that I have included no fewer than seven chapters dealing with the detection and discovery of coronaviruses by nucleic acid approaches, with antibody-based approaches being described in three other chapters.