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April 25, 2003

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS 

"LSU Professor Hopes to Develop Vaccine Against SARS"

Baton Rouge Advocate (www.theadvocate.com) (04/24/03); NaaNes, Marlene

Gus Kousoulas, director of virology and biotechnology at the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine, believes that his expertise in a disease similar to the new flu-like illness that has erupted in China, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), could help him to develop a vaccine against the disease more quickly than others who are facing the sickness for the first time.  Kousoulas says that he and his colleagues had found SARS, or a disease very much like it, in cattle in the late 1990s, when cows shipped from Texas were contracting lung infections and diarrhea in two epidemics of what is known colloquially as "shipping fever."  He also notes that hundreds of researchers from all around the world have already contacted him, requesting information about his research, because of the similarity between the bovine illness and SARS.  Kousoulas believes the SARS virus has been in existence for some time, given its genetic variations that suggest it has been able to grow and change over a long period into several different forms, such as a bovine version, an avian version, and now the human type.

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