Word: coronaviruses
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...SARS epidemic may be waning in some of its hot zones in the world, but scientists aren't ready to put away their petri dishes and declare victory yet. They know, through long experience trying to eradicate AIDS and other persistent diseases, that pathogens like the mutated coronavirus believed to cause SARS are full of surprises?and that most are nasty ones...
...Coronavirus Works...
...March more than 200 people contracted SARS in a matter of days?producing a logjam of critically ill patients who are now beginning to die, as it takes several weeks for SARS to claim its victims. More unsettling are reports from several laboratories that the coronavirus responsible is mutating almost continuously as it spreads, raising the possibility that certain strains may be more vicious than others...
...Compounding the problem, doctors still haven't come up with a verifiably effective treatment anywhere. In Hong Kong, clinicians are continuing to use the antiviral drug ribavirin, though tests in the U.S. have shown that it doesn't kill the coronavirus. Several kinds of vaccines are already in the works, but private companies are hesitant to spend money on a virus that could disappear soon. That means most of the research is left to the cash-strapped public sector, and progress is slow. Even the most optimistic researchers believe a vaccine will take two years to develop?assuming the virus...
...Some scientists are not even sure the coronavirus is the sole agent behind SARS. According to Dr. Frank Plummer, director of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory, the SARS coronavirus is showing up in only 40% of Canada's probable cases. Though the WHO is holding fast to the belief that SARS is caused by a mutated coronavirus, Plummer says, "In our data, the association between the coronavirus and SARS seems to be weakening rather than strengthening...