SARS origin: Probe examines three factors

He went on to say: 8216;8216;It8217;s behaving like a naturally arising organism. I8217;ve not heard any information that this is anything but naturally acquired.8217;8217; Hughes noted that news reports out of Hong Kong indicated the first case there was a Chinese infectious diseases researcher who visited from Guangdong province 8212; an area suspected as the origin of the disease.

Again, five years ago, a man-made virus was created in Australia to kill wild rabbits. The virus leaked from the manufacturing laboratory and swept across Australia and New Zealand, killing millions of rabbits. More likely, experts say, is a natural zoonotic event. Zoonosis describes the movement of microbes from one species to another, such as from pigs to humans, experts said.

The other possibility is that the virus has been around for a long time, causing occasional infections and that some event in China facilitated a dramatic spread. LAT-WP