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Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by the virus SARS-CoV-1, the first identified strain of the SARS-related coronavirus. [3] The first known cases occurred in November 2002, and the syndrome caused the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak .
Another estimate suggests SARS-CoV-2 shares a common ancestor with bat coronavirus RmYN02 in about 1976. [172] SARS-CoV also possibly originated in around 1962 from the same horseshoe bats that harbours SARS-like coronaviruses. [116] It was transmitted humans in around 1998 (4.08 years prior to the outbreak in 2003). [173]
The major part of the outbreak lasted about 8 months, and the World Health Organization declared SARS contained on 5 July 2003. However, several SARS cases were reported until May 2004. [4] In late December 2019, SARS-CoV-2, a coronavirus in the same genus as the one that caused SARS, was discovered in Wuhan, Hubei, China.
Another common finding in SARS patients is a decrease in the number of lymphocytes circulating in the blood. [14] In the SARS outbreak of 2003, about 9% of patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-1 infection died. [15] The mortality rate was much higher for those over 60 years old, with mortality rates approaching 50% for this subset of patients. [15]
The closest known viral relatives of SARS-CoV-2 are RaTG13 and BANAL-52, sampled from horseshoe bat droppings in Yunnan province in China and Feuang, Laos, respectively. The evolutionary distance between SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13 is estimated to be about 50 years (between 38 and 72 years). [18] [19]
The timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic lists the articles containing the chronology and epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2, [1] the virus that causes the coronavirus disease 2019 and is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The first human cases of COVID-19 occurred in Wuhan, People's Republic of China, on or about 17 November 2019. [2]
On January 20, Chinese authorities announced the confirmation that human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus had already occurred. [19] [20]The first recorded U.S. case of the new virus was also reported on January 20, in a 35-year-old American citizen traveling from Wuhan, China, to his home in Washington state.
SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh known coronavirus to infect people, after 229E, NL63, OC43, HKU1, MERS-CoV, and the original SARS-CoV. [105] Like the SARS-related coronavirus implicated in the 2003 SARS outbreak, SARS‑CoV‑2 is a member of the subgenus Sarbecovirus (beta-CoV lineage B). [106] [107] Coronaviruses undergo frequent recombination. [108]