Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) welcomed the
finding announced by Hong Kong scientists of possible cause of SARS
virus from civet cats as "important," according to news reaching
from the organization Saturday.
WHO said the new finding would help direct future research into the
virus. Scientists have been researching on the possible links
between wild animals and the killer virus since the disease broke
out.
Francois Meslin, a WHO expert on diseases acquired from animals,
told reporters the findings are "clearly quite exciting." However,
he also noted it is still too early to draw final conclusions on
those findings.
Meslin said it still cannot rule out the possibility the animals
acquired the virus from humans, or that the virus jumped to humans
from another animal altogether.
Hours after WHO lifted the travel advisory against Hong Kong on
Friday, scientists from the University of Hong Kong announced they
had successfully isolated a type of coronavirus that causes SARS
and it came from civet cats.
Professor Yuen Kwok Yung, head of microbiology at the University of
Hong Kong, said they believe the SARS virus jumped straight from
civet cats to people.
However, He also acknowledged they could not rule out the
possibility other animals were involved in the transmission
chain.
Yuen's team made the research in collaboration with the Center for
Disease Control and Prevention of Shenzhen.
They tested a large number of animals in south China's Guangdong
province, including civet cats, wild rabbits and barking deer, and
found coronavirus in four masked palm civets.
Civets, belonging to a large group of mostly nocturnal mammals, are
not a true cat though they look like cats. The masked palm civets
are one type of civets cats which have a white and black striped
face.
Yuen said it was important that the civet cats and other game food
animals should be raised, slaughtered and sold under careful
monitoring to prevent more outbreaks of SARS in people.
"If you cannot control further jumping of such viruses from animals
to humans, the same epidemic can occur again," he said.
Yuen's team had previously said SARS came from animals but they had
not been sure which kind. His team is the earliest in the world to
identify that SARS virus is a type of coronavirus.
(Xinhua News Agency May 24, 2003)
