China's first animal model of SARS has been established in the Animal Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. The model uses rhesus monkeys to find SARS vaccines and medicines, as the animal's pathological changes to SARS are very similar to human beings.

Qin Chuan, vice director of the Animal Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, and his research team developed the animal model. They found the rhesus monkey is an ideal replacement for human beings in SARS research. And they have applied for a Chinese patent. 

Under the help of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Qin and his team inoculated the SARS virus, isolated from SARS patients, to 15 rhesus monkeys through nasal cavities. Two or three days after the inoculation, all the monkeys had a fever which lasted for about four days; five days after the inoculation, the DNA of SARS virus was found in the experiment samples of some monkeys; seven days passed when the DNA of SARS virus was isolated from four monkey's experiment samples; 10 days passed, and the DNA was found in all of the samples; and 17 days passed that all the monkeys' SARS virus antibodies in blood serum were positive. 

The experiments also found that the monkeys' lungs had pneumonia, dropsy, structural damage, bleeding and vascular hyaline degeneration separately in 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 days after the virus inoculation. Meanwhile, keratin and immunity organization coloration found epithelia, macrophages and lymphocytes in infiltrative cells. After 30 days, the lungs of monkeys caught fibrosis. All the above show a plenty of similarities to human beings in pathological changes once infect SARS virus.

Qin added that the rhesus monkey is also like human beings in immunity responses of body fluid and toxin discharges.

 

(China.org.cn by Feng Yikun, August 19, 2003)