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Biotech / Medical : SARS and Avian Flu -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Biomaven who wrote (1176)	1/9/2004 6:24:22 PM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 4232

Peter, I don't think its that fuzzy and 50 isn't necessarily a magic number, The magic number for SARS may in fact be much closer to 25, because GZ01 was isolated from a patient who died and GZ01 only had 2 mutations over the 23 that all isolates had and GZ01 didn't have the 29 nt deletion. In fact most of the viral isolates were from fatal cases or super spreaders, so the threshold is quite a bit lower than 50. However, most of the market workers who have antibodies don't develop SARS, so the number for fatal SARS is probably between 0 on 23, so the clock I showed is probably more of a situation that is going from bad to worse. Thus, the mutations this year might just show how close the epidemic is to bad, and the fact that the civets appear to be more humanized and a patient with an EXACT match to the civet Spike protein ended up with SARS, even if it was a mild case, says quite a bit. Last season the civet with the highest number of the 50 mutations only had 4, so the gap between 4 and 23 was pretty wide. This season the gap is zero, but it doesn't sound like it is at zero, since the civets are more "humanized". Time will tell, but a gap of 0 with a humanized civet in December isn't a good combination.

To: Biomaven who wrote (1176)	1/10/2004 2:48:49 AM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4232

Peter, Some have expressed a concern about dual posting, so I have just posted SARS Season Cycling at discuss.agonist.org It addresses some of the issues that you raised.

To: Biomaven who wrote (1176)	1/10/2004 3:59:14 AM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 4232

Here is some commentary about the search for civet sequences at the restaurant employing the second Guangzhou SARS case discuss.agonist.org

To: Biomaven who wrote (1176)	1/10/2004 11:07:32 AM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4232

Peter, I have added an update on the WHO visits to the waitress' seafood restaurant as well as the market that supplies them with game (including civets) discuss.agonist.org Last year one of the first SARS super spreaders was a seafood merchant and one of the early cases was a chef, but now with a recent transmission, they can do much more.