In late 2002, there was an outbreak of an infectious agent in Guangdong province, China, which caused severe respiratory tract infections – the agent was called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and was later demonstrated to be a virus. The virus quickly spread to Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, India, Canada and several other countries before being contained. The outbreak lead to the issuance of travel advisories in several Chinese provinces (including Beijing), Singapore and Toronto and had a large economic impact. By July 2003 SARS had infected more than 8000 people, of which nearly 800 died. Although there has not been a serious outbreak of SARS since its containment in 2003, it may be endemic in certain animal species and therefore poses a constant threat of re-emergence.

Erasmus MC was a member of the World Health Organization's SARS task force to identify and contain the etiological agent of SARS. It was among the first to sequence parts of the causative virus (SARS-CoV) and was the first to demonstrate that SARS-CoV was the etiological agent of SARS.

Viroscope is spearheading an effort to form a patent pool consisting of patent applications that incorporate the genomic sequence of SARS-CoV. The formation of such a patent pool would facilitate access to essential patents required for the development of vaccines and diagnostics to SARS-CoV.

References:

http://www.who.int/csr/sars/en/

http://www.who.int/bulletin/

Nature 423, 240 (15 May 2003) : Aetiology: Koch's postulates fulfilled for SARS virus.