Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Woo, Patrick CY
• Lau, Susanna KP
• Tsoi, Hoi-wah
• Chan, Kwok-hung
• Wong, Beatrice HL
• Che, Xiao-yan
• Tam, Victoria KP
• Tam, Sidney CF
• Cheng, Vincent CC
• Hung, Ivan FN
• Wong, Samson SY
• Zheng, Bo-jian
• Guan, Yi
• Yuen, Kwok-yung

Titel

Relative rates of non-pneumonic SARS coronavirus infection and SARS coronavirus pneumonia

Ist Teil von

• The Lancet (British edition), 2004-03, Vol.363 (9412), p.841-845

Ort / Verlag

London: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2004

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

EBSCOhost Business Source Ultimate

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Although the genome of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) has been sequenced and a possible animal reservoir identified, seroprevalence studies and mass screening for detection of subclinical and non-pneumonic infections are still lacking. We cloned and purified the nucleocapsid protein and spike polypeptide of SARS-CoV and examined their immunogenicity with serum from patients with SARS-CoV pneumonia. An ELISA based on recombinant nucleocapsid protein for IgG detection was tested with serum from 149 healthy blood donors who donated 3 years previously and with serum positive for antibodies against SARS-CoV (by indirect immunofluorescence assay) from 106 patients with SARS-CoV pneumonia. The seroprevalence of SARS-CoV was studied with the ELISA in healthy blood donors who donated during the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong, non-pneumonic hospital inpatients, and symptom-free health-care workers. All positive samples were confirmed by two separate western-blot assays (with recombinant nucleocapsid protein and recombinant spike polypeptide). Western-blot analysis showed that the nucleocapsid protein and spike polypeptide of SARS-CoV are highly immunogenic. The specificity of the IgG antibody test (ELISA with positive samples confirmed by the two western-blot assays) was 100%, and the sensitivity was 94·3%. Three of 400 healthy blood donors who donated during the SARS outbreak and one of 131 non-pneumonic paediatric inpatients were positive for IgG antibodies, confirmed by the two western-blot assays (total, 0·48% of our study population). Our findings support the existence of subclinical or non-pneumonic SARS-CoV infections. Such infections are more common than SARS-CoV pneumonia in our locality.