Monkeys infected with a new coronavirus have developed an illness similar to the human respiratory disease SARS, and it is now almost certain that the coronavirus causes the disease.
Dr David Heymann, executive director in charge of communicable diseases for the World Health Organisation, said the agency was "99 per cent sure" that severe acute respiratory syndrome was caused by the new coronavirus based on the monkey experiments in the Netherlands.
Experiments on primates and other animals are necessary because the lack of an effective treatment for SARS and its relatively high death rate make it unethical to conduct the experiments on humans.
Preliminary findings show that the monkeys developed an illness resembling SARS after the coronavirus was put in their nostrils.
Some monkeys developed pneumonia and examination of their lungs under a microscope showed that the coronavirus caused a pattern of lung damage similar to that in affected humans. Such findings include the formation of syncytia, or giant cells, in the lungs.
Scientists from the WHO's network of 12 international laboratories that have been seeking the cause of SARS will meet today in Geneva to review the evidence concerning the new coronavirus.
A formal announcement that the likely cause of SARS has been found could come as early as today.
- New York Times