Viruses: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

by Dorothy H. Crawford

Coronaviruses form a large family of viruses that mainly cause respiratory and gastrointestinal infections in humans, including the common cold, and also infect a wide variety of other mammals. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) first emerged in November 2002 in Foshan, Guangdong Province, China, where it caused an outbreak of atypical pneumonia. Initially, the virus spread locally, particularly among patients’ family members and hospital staff, but everything changed in February 2003 when a doctor who had treated SARS cases in Guangdong Province travelled to Hong Kong. He stayed one night in a hotel before being admitted to hospital where he died of SARS a few days later. The virus spread to hospital staff and visitors, sparking an epidemic in Hong Kong (Figure 9). The doctor also passed SARS-CoV to at least seventeen hotel guests who then carried it to five more countries, spawning epidemics in Canada, Vietnam, and Singapore.