Coronavirus Genomic-Sequence Variations and the Epidemiology of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

To the Editor: Our teaching hospital was the site of a major outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).1 We sequenced viral isolates cultured from clinical specimens from seven patients with SARS in this outbreak. The viral isolates were from passage 1 of the SARS coronavirus cultured in Vero cells.2 We obtained the complete genomic sequence of the virus cultured from the mother of the index patient in this hospital outbreak (isolate Su-10, GenBank accession number AY282752).1 The mother's symptoms had begun on March 5, 2003; she died on April 13, 2003. We also sequenced the spike glycoprotein gene . . .