A worldwide group of scientists has claimed to have identified the cause of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
In a study published this morning on the website of the medical journal, the Lancet, the experts confirm that a new form of corona-virus caused more than 8,300 cases of SARS between November 2002 and July 2003.
Dr Albert Osterhaus from Erasmus University, Rotterdam, and other virology experts from Hong Kong, Singapore, Britain, Switzerland and France analysed the results of investigations performed by a World Health Organisation network of laboratories.
In addition, they infected four macaques (a type of monkey found in south-east Asia) with the newly named SARS-CoV virus to see if the animals would develop SARS.
All four monkeys began to shed the new virus from their noses and mouths two days after infection. Three of the four developed the characteristic lung damage seen in human SARS patients.
The animal experiment findings were the final step in proving that SARS-CoV is the cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome.
According to Dr Osterhaus, "these results of laboratory studies of SARS patients and experimental infection of macaques prove that the newly discovered SARS Co-V is the primary causal agent of SARS".
SARS is an emerging infectious disease first reported in the Guangdong province of China in November 2002. It spread to other countries in Asia, north America and Europe.
Despite a number of medical alerts here, the Republic officially recorded just one case of the disease. A death rate of almost 10 per cent along with the lengthy hospitalisation of other victims led to a worldwide health alert by the World Health Organisation in March.
As the epidemic nears an end, health experts last week warned of the possibility that SARS would reappear this autumn.
The international panel of medical experts lists the seasonality of the virus, its likely source in an animal reservoir and the lack of human immunity as the reasons the syndrome poses a risk to people living in the northern hemisphere this autumn and winter.