In case anyone else became a little confused about the SARS posts
yesterday, here is a brief summary as I now understand it.  There have
been two recent, yet very different, studies about SARS and animals.
 
The most recent study was published in the journal Nature.  Scientists
infected domestic cats and domestic ferrets (yes, Mustela furo, our
little guys) with SARS.  This was done primarily to find good animal
models for vaccine and antiviral drug research; before such research can
proceed, it must first be proven that the animals used are indeed able
to get the illness in question.  I'm not entering a debate about the
rightness or wrongness of this, just explaining what was done.
 
In this study (the one in Nature), the investigators also placed healthy
ferrets in with the infected ones to demonstrate that the ferrets could
pass it on to each other.  This part, about the ferrets transmitting
SARS, is where there may be some question about what happened.  The
healthy ferrets did become ill and eventually die, but there was concern
that perhaps the healthy ferrets physically had contact with the cultured
virus from the experimentally-infected ferrets.
 
A completely different study was published a few weeks ago in the journal
Science.  This one was about animals from live animal markets in southern
China.  This is the one where an infected chinese ferret badger (Melogale
moschata, not our ferrets) was mentioned and then the media in some cases
confused things by saying a ferret was involved.  This study made no
mention of domestic ferrets at all.
 
Citations:
 
Nature 425, 915 (30 October 2003).  SARS virus infection of cats and
ferrets.  Martina, Haagmans, et al.
 
Science 302, 276 (10 October 2003).  Isolation and characterization of
viruses related to the SARS coronavirus from animals in southern China.
Guah, Zheng et al.
 
-Pam S.
[Posted in FML issue 4317]