SARS

(noun)

The SARS coronavirus, sometimes shortened to SARS-CoV, is the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

Related Terms

Examples of SARS in the following topics:

  • Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases

    • ., SARS, AIDS) that may have evolved from a known infection (e.g., influenza), or spread to a new population (e.g., West Nile virus), or to an area undergoing ecologic transformation (e.g., Lyme disease).
    • Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease in humans which is caused by the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) .
    • Within weeks, SARS spread from Hong Kong to infect individuals in 37 countries.
    • SARS is not claimed to have been eradicated (unlike smallpox), as it may still be present in its natural host reservoirs (animal populations) and may return to the human population.
    • During the outbreak, the fatality of SARS was less than 1% for people aged 24 or younger, 6% for those 25 to 44, 15% for those 45 to 64, and more than 50% for those over 65.

  • Medical Importance of Viruses

    • Among these are the sudden emergence of the coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the continued transmission of an avian influenza virus to humans ("bird flu"), and the isolation of poliovirus vaccine-wild type recombinants that have hampered poliovirus eradication efforts.
    • A chest x-ray showing increased opacity in both lungs, indicative of pneumonia, in a patient with SARS.

  • Viral Pneumonia

    • Rarer viruses that commonly cause pneumonia include adenoviruses (in military recruits), metapneumoviruses, and severe acute respiratory syndrome virus (SARS coronavirus).

  • Technology and New Infectious Agents

    • Such time frames have been decreased to weeks or months by the use of powerful molecular techniques, as seen with the identification of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) within weeks of the first cases reported, the discovery of a new hantavirus in North America in 1993, and the detection of bacteria as etiological pathogens of human infections such as Ehrlichia chaffeensis and Anaplasma phagocytophilum in human monocytotropic ehrlichiosis and human granulocytotropic anaplasmosis, respectively.

  • Negative-Strand RNA Viruses of Animals

    • The emergence of the SARS virus or Ebola Zaire virus in the human population, coming from an animal source, highlights the importance of animals in bearing infectious agents.

  • Viral Exit

    • These include enveloped viruses such as HSV, SARS, or smallpox.

  • Artificial Blood Substitutes

    • There is no practical way to test for prion-transmitted diseases in donated blood, such as mad cow and Creutzfeld-Jacob disease, and other diseases could emerge as problems for the blood supply, including smallpox and SARS.

  • Problem-Solving

    • A virus (for example SARS, or smallpox) typically will spread exponentially at first, if no artificial immunization is available.

  • Treatment of Animal Viral Infections

    • The emergence of the SARS virus in the human population, coming from an animal source, highlights the importance of animals in bearing infectious agents.

  • Safety in the Microbiology Laboratory

    • Bacteria and viruses that can cause severe to fatal disease in humans, but for which vaccines or other treatments exist, such as anthrax, West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, SARS virus, tuberculosis, typhus, Rift Valley fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, yellow fever, and malaria.