China: SARS May Be Linked to Chlamydia-Like Agent

[Guest guest]

Quoting KD Weber <wvadreamin:

 

> ED NOTE: Raising the question ... : sexually-transmitted ?

>

> 04 Apr 2003 15:49 BST

>

> China: SARS May Be Linked to Chlamydia-Like Agent

> http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=searchNews & storyID=2509445

>

> BEIJING (Reuters) - China's center for disease control said on Friday

> it suspects a chlamydia-like agent caused an outbreak of a flu-like

> virus that has killed 82 people and infected over 2,400 worldwide.

> " We're 80 percent sure, " Hong Tao, a researcher with the Institute of

> Virology under the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention,

> told a news conference.

>

> The center studied samples of victims' lungs, livers, kidneys and other

> organs which showed a chlamydia-like agent appeared to have caused the

> outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Hong said.

>

> In Geneva, a spokesman for the World Health Organization said the U.N.

> agency was " 99 percent " certain SARS was caused by a previously unknown

> strain belonging to the coronavirus family, a major cause of the common

> cold.

>

> However, until it was absolutely certain, the possibility that some

> other virus, including chlamydia, also played a role could not be ruled

> out.

>

> Hong told the Beijing news conference the agent most likely came from

> animals, but it was not known what kind.

>

> SARS has killed 46 people and infected 1,191 in China since November

> when it first surfaced in the southern province of Guangdong, and then

> went on to spread around the globe in March. (Reporting by Dai Shasha in

> Beijing, Richard Waddington in Geneva)

>

>