Word: yi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...inside story of how that decision to cull civets came to be made, however, is one of aggressive public health, great courage and, most important, good science. It is very possible that research led by one virologist, Dr. Yi Guan, 42, and the extraordinary measures he took to make officials aware of his work may lead scientists to new ways to contain a fresh SARS outbreak...
Almost every week for the past year, Yi, a microbiology associate professor at the University of Hong Kong, has traveled by rail up to Shenzhen and Guangzhou to carry out fieldwork. It was Yi, along with the Shenzhen Centers for Disease Control, who in May took samples from Shenzhen's Dongmen Market and made the discovery that the masked palm civet, as well as the raccoon dog and hog badger, carried a virus remarkably similar to the SARS coronavirus. That research, initially hailed as a breakthrough in establishing the zoonotic origins of SARS, resulted in the Guangdong government temporarily banning...
Instead, subsequent research by a mainland Chinese team challenged Yi's research, finding no evidence of the coronavirus in civets. Meanwhile, other scientists murmured that Yi's data was based on too narrow a range of samples drawn from just one market. Perhaps those civets, some argued, had been infected by humans in that market rather than the other way around. For Yi, a hot-tempered, chain-smoking workaholic, this was an unbearable impugning not just of his research but also of his genuine desire to apply his science to public health. Even more worrying was China's decision...
...Yi's mentor, Rob Webster of St. Jude's Hospital in Memphis and a pioneer in establishing the zoonotic origins of many influenzas, says, "The research is solid, but still, Yi has certainly stuck his neck way out there on this one." Yi, as usual, is dismissive of any doubts. Back in Hong Kong, he explains how the virus found in other rodents such as badgers is genetically less similar to the strains found in humans, before vowing that culling civets "will break the chain of infection...
...incubation period for SARS is 14 days. The last civets were taken from the wild animal markets on Jan. 6. By Jan. 20, if no new human cases emerge, we will have a very good indication if Yi, and the Guangdong government, made the right call...