Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)

Anatomy or system affected: Immune system, lungs, respiratory system

Definition: A type of pneumonia, caused by a novel coronavirus, that may progress to respiratory failure and death

Causes: Coronavirus infection transmitted through contact with infected humans or animals

Symptoms: Severe pneumonia, with respiratory failure, fever, chills and rigors, muscle pain, coughing, headache, dizziness

Duration: Acute, sometimes fatal

Treatments: Supportive measures, corticosteroids, isolation

Causes and Symptoms

SARS first received worldwide attention in February, 2003, after a Chinese physician from Guangdong Province and twelve other guests at a hotel in Hong Kong became ill. Subsequent investigation of cases traced the illness back to November, 2002, when a businessperson from Guangdong Province developed the new disease and soon died. Using electron microscopy, molecular techniques, and tissue cultures, researchers identified a coronavirus in a variety of specimens from patients with SARS. (Coronaviruses are named for the glycoprotein spikes on the outside of the envelope surrounding the viral capsid that give the appearance of a crown, or corona, under a microscope.) The virus was cultured from lung and kidney specimens obtained at autopsy of the Chinese physician using African green monkey kidney cells. Pure cultures of the coronavirus were inoculated into monkeys, producing pneumonia and confirming that the coronavirus was the causative agent.

Human studies revealed antibodies to this coronavirus only in SARS patients, suggesting that this was a new type of infection. Similar studies in animals showed that SARS antibodies are present in wild animals, including the masked palm civet, raccoon dog, and ferret badger. While these animals have been found to host the SARS coronavirus, a 2006 study suggested that the natural reservoir host of SARS is likely the horseshoe bat. The crowded, unclean markets of Guangdong Province, which sell wild animals for human consumption, may have provided the opportunity for the virus to infect humans.

After an incubation period of two to sixteen days after exposure, patients develop fever, chills and rigors, myalgia (muscle pain), cough, headache, and dizziness. Less common symptoms are sputum production, sore throat, nausea and vomiting, and diarrhea. Radiographs and high-resolution computed tomography (CT) scans of the chest show ground-glass opacities and unilateral or bilateral air-space consolidation. Laboratory findings early in the illness often include lymphopenia, thrombocytopenia, and a variety of serum enzyme (lactate dehydrogenase, creatinine kinase, and alanine aminotransferase) elevations distinguishing SARS from pneumonia caused by usual bacterial pathogens.

SARS is often progressive in severity and is highly infective, especially for family members and healthcare workers. During the 2003 outbreak, the disease spread to many countries, with more than eight thousand cases and nine hundred deaths worldwide. The overall mortality rate was about 5 percent. Researchers wondered whether this respiratory illness would follow the seasonal pattern of similar viral illnesses, such as influenza. A SARS case diagnosed in Guangdong Province in January, 2004, led the Chinese government to order the mass slaughter of civets and rats in the hope of containing the disease.

Besides the livestock and human tolls, SARS inflicted economic and political damage. During the outbreak months in 2003, Asian countries saw a financial loss of roughly $28 billion. For the first time, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued an advisory suggesting that travelers avoid parts of the world infected with SARS. North American–based airlines cut 10 percent of their flights to Asia, resulting in a 60 percent drop in tourism. In Canada, China, and the United States, sporting events, public gatherings, film productions, religious services, and parades were canceled because of fears concerning SARS. However, these measures did help control the spread of the virus. The last cases of the original outbreak were reported in 2004.

An interesting footnote to the SARS legacy occurred in June, 2006, when Chinese researchers revealed that at least one of the reported SARS deaths in China during April, 2003, was actually the result of H5N1 avian influenza; raising the possibility that other cases and deaths attributed to SARS may have actually been human cases of H5N1 bird flu and that the Chinese government covered up the possibility that two pathogens were creating simultaneous outbreaks in order to avoid further economic disruption.

Treatment and Therapy

No specific diagnostic test for SARS is available, hampering early diagnosis and treatment. SARS cases can be suspected but not reliably distinguished from other types of pneumonia. Thus far, no antiviral agent has been found to be active against the SARS virus, and initial empiric therapy with antibacterial and antiviral agents has been directed at other pathogens that cause pneumonia that is indistinguishable from SARS.

Supportive measures directed toward respiratory failure, often provided in an intensive care unit, are the mainstays of SARS therapy. In some cases of progressive pneumonia with respiratory failure, corticosteroid therapy has been used. Because of the alarming infectivity and spread of SARS, precautions against airborne droplets (respirators) and direct contact (gowns and gloves) are recommended.

Perspective and Prospects

A coronavirus was first cultured from an adult patient with a common cold in 1965. It is now recognized that coronavirus infections may cause up to 30 percent of common colds, but before SARS coronaviruses rarely produced pneumonia. These viruses also cause disease in a wide variety of animals, but usually in only one species. It is unclear how the SARS agent jumped from animals to humans, though bats are generally believed to be the original host. A more complete understanding of these issues will improve the chances of eliminating the disease from humans.

Fortunately, only a relatively small number of SARS were reported in the first decades of the twenty-first century. On May 18, 2004, the WHO reported that an outbreak in China was contained and that human-to-human spread had apparently ceased. Subsequent cases were only known from laboratory accidents, though it is possible that a few individuals continued to be infected through animal-to-human transmission.

Extraordinarily rapid research produced sequencing of the SARS coronavirus genome soon after the disease was identified. With this knowledge, molecular diagnostic techniques have been developed and should produce rapid and accurate diagnostic tests that will be widely available. Thousands of antiviral agents are being tested for activity against the virus, and new antivirals are being developed. Vaccines are available for some animal coronaviruses, and a SARS vaccine may be developed. In the meantime, there is hope that infection control and quarantine measures will be able to limit any future outbreak of SARS.

The WHO reported that, in September 2012, a new SARS-like virus, originally called novel coronavirus (nCoV) and eventually named Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), emerged in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Britain, Germany, and France. The fatality rate was estimated at about one in three. MERS spread to at least twenty-seven countries by 2020, but the vast majority of cases were reported in Saudi Arabia. Researchers found that humans were infected primarily from camels, with rare cases of human-to-human transmission. It was also suspected that the virus, like many coronaviruses, originated in bats.

Another novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was identified in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Tentatively linked to bats and animal markets in the region, it was responsible for the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19, in the human population. COVID-19 rapidly spread out of China, leading the WHO to declare a pandemic in early 2020. Within months millions of people around the world had been infected and hundreds of thousands had died. By mid-2023, nearly seven million people had died from COVID-19.

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