SARS
Linked To 3 Small Animals
May 23, 2003
The World
Health Organization has traced the SARS virus to the civet cat and two other
small mammals in China, and researchers are investigating a possible link
between the animals and the SARS outbreak in humans, an official said Friday.
Researchers from the University of Hong Kong examined 25 animals representing
eight species in a live animal market in southern China and found the virus in
all six masked palm civets they sampled, as well as in a badger and a raccoon
dog.
Klaus Stohr, chief SARS virologist at the WHO, said Friday it was impossible to
tell from the study whether any of the animals spread the virus to humans or
whether they caught the virus from people.
"All these animals could have been infected by feed which was given to
them at the market," Stohr said. "Very often these markets have one
major supplier of feed."
He added that a recent study from Guangdong province in southern China — where
the SARS outbreak first emerged in November — indicated that more than 30
percent of the early SARS cases there were food handlers.
"This is corroborative evidence that there make be a link between the
wildlife and the emergence of SARS."
The Hong Kong researchers said people could have been infected while raising,
slaughtering or cooking the animals and that eating fully cooked meat was
probably safe.
Civet cats are nocturnal animals related to the mongoose, with long tails and
catlike bodies. They resemble small raccoons or weasels.
The researchers said it was possible that SARS was transmitted to the animals
through human feces used in fertilizer, and that the virus did not originate
with them. They recommended that such game animals be raised, slaughtered and
sold under careful monitoring.
Meanwhile, the WHO lifted its SARS-related travel advisories Friday for Hong
Kong and Guangdong province, declaring the virus there under control.
It continued to advise against nonessential travel to the Chinese capital,
Beijing, and to the regions of Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and Tianjin. It
also continued to advise against travel to Taiwan, because of continuing new
transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome.
There also have been no recent reports of cases being exported to other
countries from Hong Kong or Guangdong province. All new cases in the past 20
days have occurred in people who were "already identified as contacts of a
person with SARS and under active surveillance by the local health
authorities," WHO added.
SARS has infected more than 8,000 people worldwide and killed at least 689, the
vast majority in China and Hong Kong.
"The outbreak in many areas of China is ongoing, and will require
continuing intensive efforts as well as a rapid injection of new resources to
fully contain SARS," WHO said.
Also, an American physician with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
who was helping Taiwan battle SARS left the island Friday on a charter flight
after developing a fever and other symptoms possibly caused by the virus.
Chesley L. Richards Jr. was headed for Atlanta, where the CDC is headquartered.
He had been in Taiwan since May 15, visiting the emergency rooms and
intensive-care units at two Taipei hospitals where SARS outbreaks were
reported.
WHO says it is seeking $200 million to launch a fund to help Asian nations
combat SARS through medical surveillance and analysis.
It also said the SARS has infected chains of up to 15 people and appears to be
just as hardy in its last victim as in its first. Some other viruses mutate
over time, and their ability to transmit weakens.
Taiwan reported 55 new SARS cases Friday but no new deaths. The island's total
number of infections is 538 and the death toll is 60 the third-highest toll
after mainland China and Hong Kong.
In Canada, health officials say they fear that four people in a Toronto
hospital may be ill with SARS. All four are in a respiratory isolation ward,
two in critical condition. If confirmed, they would be the city's first new
SARS cases since April 19, 2003.
Feline
cuisine linked with SARS
Civet cats, now suspected of
being at the center of the global SARS outbreak, have long been considered
exotic cuisine for those with adventurous taste buds in southern China's
Guangdong province.
The mammals with cat-like
bodies, long tails and weasel-like faces are regular captives in live animal
markets, such as the Hua Nan Wild Animal Market in Guangzhou, and are prized
dishes in wildlife restaurants.
Crammed into small cages with
not enough room to stretch their legs, the furry creatures are dragged out and
beaten to death in front of customers to ensure freshness when buyers order one
up.
They are then dunked into a
huge pot of boiling water and if the animals are still not dead after being boiled,
the vendors throw them to the ground and club them some more until they no
longer move.
Then the creatures are
skinned and chopped into pieces and put in a bag to be taken to restaurants or
home where they usually await guests at large fancy banquets.
Researchers at the University
of Hong Kong (HKU) said Friday the coronavirus which causes SARS has been
traced to civet cats, hailing the finding as a major breakthrough in the fight
against the disease.
Some of the first victims of
SARS in Guangdong province, where the SARS outbreak started in November, were
chefs or people who had contact with animals, but World Health Organisation
officials who visited Guangdong in April said they had no conclusive evidence
that SARS was linked to animals.
Wild animal markets have been
allowed to exists for years. While the government periodically cracks down on
the sale of endangered species there, it has largely turned a blind eye to the
conditions.
Cries and wails from the
animals fill the markets, which are located in central parts of the city, not
far from residential districts.
Besides civets, a stew of
domestic, wild and endangered species can be found there, including dogs, cats,
masked palm civets, ferret badgers, barking deer, wild boars, hedgehogs, foxes,
squirrels, bamboo rats, various species of snakes, gerbils, giant tortoises,
cranes and endangered leopard cats.
The animal rights group,
Animals Asia Foundation, said in a statement this month that despite recent
efforts by the Chinese government to ban the sale of wild animals in markets
throughout the country as a temporary measure against SARS, it has found clear
evidence of traders ignoring these regulations.
The Hua Nan market, for
example, was found putting animals openly on sale last week.
Many of the animals showed
bloody stumps, where their limbs had been severed in leg-hold traps in the
wild.
The Foundation and others
urged China to immediately shut down the markets.
The markets, where all
species are held together in unnaturally close concentration under tremendous
stress, are a potential breeding ground for new and deadly strains of disease,
said Animals Asia Veterinary Director Gail Cochrane.
"Even if the SARS virus
did not evolve from animals in the markets, the conditions present an ideal
environment in which other unknown or new viruses may incubate and
emerge," Cochrane said.
"The only way to
minimise the threat of new viruses being transmitted is to close the markets
down."
