January 30 2004 at 05:54AM By Maggie Fox Washington - The Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus fine-tuned itself to
become more infectious as last year's epidemic spread across
China, researchers reported on Thursday. Early patients with
SARS had a genetically form, very similar to that seen in
civets, while the last patients in the epidemic had a slightly
mutated form, the researchers said. "What we see is the virus
fine-tuning itself to enhance its access to a new host, humans,"
Chung-I Wu, a professor and chairperson of ecology and evolution
at the University of Chicago, said in a statement. 'Early
patients with SARS had a genetically form' "This is a disturbing
process to watch, as the virus improves itself under selective
pressure, learning to spread from person to person, then
sticking with the version that is most effective." This may
explain why the virus became more infectious with time, Wu said.
The finding, published in the journal Science, supports the idea
the virus leapt to people from