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Letter
Animal-to-Human SARS–associated
Coronavirus Transmission?
Zhao-Rong Lun*
and Liang-Hu Qu*
*Zhongshan (Sun Yat-Sen) University, Guangzhou, People's Republic of China
Suggested citation
for this article:
Lun ZR, Qu LH. Animal-to-human SARS–associated coronavirus transmission?
Emerg Infect Dis [serial online]. 2004 May [date cited]. Available
from: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no5/04-0022.htm
To the Editor: Martina et al. reported that domestic cats and
ferrets are susceptible to infection by severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS)–Cassociated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) isolated from a patient
infected with SARS. These infected animals could efficiently transmit
the virus to uninfected animals housed with them (1).
This finding is similar to that of SARS transmission in humans in which
SARS-CoV can be quickly spread from person to person through close contact.
Ferrets and domestic cats not only can be infected by SARS-CoV in the
laboratory, but also can shed SARS-CoV from the pharynx at 2 days postinfection
and continuing through 10 and 14 days postinfection, respectively (1).
No clinical signs were observed in six cats that were injected with SARS-CoV,
whereas three of six ferrets that were injected with SARS-CoV became lethargic
within 2 to 4 days postinfection, and one of the three ferrets died at
day 4 postinfection (1,2). This finding indicates that
domestic cats may not only be a useful animal model for evaluating candidate
vaccines and drugs against SARS (1) but may also be good
reservoirs of SARS-CoV. Domestic cats living in the Amoy Gardens in Hong
Kong, where >100 residents contracted SARS in the spring of 2003, were
infected with SARS-CoV (1,3). This fact suggests that
domestic cats can be naturally infected with SARS-CoV from humans infected
with SARS, although how this SARS-CoV transmission occurs is unclear.
Unfortunately, however, the transmission capability of the SARS-CoV strain
transmitting from domestic animal to human, despite the widely accepted
hypothesis of the animal origin of SARS-CoV (4–6),
cannot be ascertained. If the transmission of SARS-CoV from animal to
human is as easy as that from humans to domestic cats, the speculation
that the outbreak of SARS in the Amoy Garden in Hong Kong was caused by
environmental sources, such as U-traps in bathrooms contaminated with
SARS-CoV (3), we should reevaluate, because this outbreak
of SARS in these apartments might also be caused by infected cats or other
mammalian hosts.
References
- Martina BE, Haagmans BL, Kuiken T, Fouchier RA, Rimmelzwaan
GF, Van Amerongen G, et al. SARS
virus infection of cats and ferrets. Nature 2003;425:915.
- Kuiken T, Fouchier RA, Schutten M, Rimmelzwaan GF, van Amerongen G,
van Riel D, et al. Newly
discovered SARS-CoV coronavirus as the primary cause of severe acute
respiratory syndrome. Lancet 2003;362:263–70.
- World Health Organization. Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)–multi-country
outbreak [monograph on the Internet]. [cited 2003 Apr 18] Update 33.
Available from: http://www.who.int/csr/don/2003_04_18/en/
- Guan Y, Zheng BJ, He YQ, Liu XL, Zhuang ZX, Cheung CL, et al. Isolation
and characterization of viruses related to the SARS coronavirus from
animals in southern China. Science 2003;302:276–8.
- Antia R, Regoes RR, Koella JC, Bergstrom CT. The
role of evolution in the emergence of infectious diseases. Nature
2003;426:658–61.
- Stavrinides J, Guttman DS. Mosaic
evolution of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus.
J Virol 2004;78:76–82.
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