The successful identification of the coronavirus means that scientists can now confidently turn to other SARS challenges, said David Heymann, executive director of WHO Communicable Diseases program.

"Now we can move away from methods like isolation and quarantines and move aggressively toward modern intervention strategies including specific treatments and eventually vaccination. With the establishment of the causative agent, we area crucial step closer," Heymann told a news briefing.

The speed at which this virus was identified is the result of the close international collaboration of 13 laboratories from 10 countries, said the WHO.

"Today, the collaboration continues as top laboratory researchers have come to WHO to design the next steps, a strategy for transforming these basic research discoveries into diagnostic tools which will help us to successfully control this disease," said Heymann.

This collaboration has brought together leading scientific expertise, and was established after WHO issued a global alert on SARS on March 12. The priority has been to find the cause and to develop diagnostic tests.

While many lines of evidence have found strong associations between this virus and the disease over the last weeks, final confirmation came Wednesday, said the WHO.

Dr. Albert Osterhaus, director of virology at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, said: "Today, the first part of the mission of our network has been fulfilled." The new coronavirus has been named by WHO and member laboratories as "SARS virus," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency April 17, 2003)