Where has SARS gone? The strange case of the disappearing Coronavirus

Abstract

In the proliferating literature on emerging zoonotic infections, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has become exemplary of the ‘spillover’ event: the passage of a killer pathogen from nonhuman to human animals. From March 2003, SARS triggered panic around the world until the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak contained in July of that year. Since the last reported cases linked to a research laboratory in China in 2004, SARS has disappeared from view. Where has SARS gone? Today, research on SARS has been eclipsed by other novel and re-emerging threats, including Ebola, H7N9, MERS, and Zika. In science reporting the emphasis is invariably on ‘emergence’ – the sudden visibility of a highly pathogenic virus. Like a work of detective fiction, the plotline of outbreak science moves from spillover to identification and closure. This paper argues for the need to develop a more sustained investigation of viral disappearance. It argues for the imperative to rewind the spillover event in order to consider what happens when infections cross back over into the place of their pre-emergence.