Rapid Detection of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syn-

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a newly emerging disease that first emerged in Guangdong Prov-ince, China in November 2002 (1). The SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) was found to be the etiology of the disease (2–4). Subsequent surveillance studies have indicated that this virus is of animal origin and have suggested that the source of the disease is still circulating in this geo-graphic region (5). Indeed, the potential risk of reemer-gence of SARS is further highlighted by a recent con-firmed SARS case in January 2004 (6). Therefore, the establishment of a rapid SARS diagnostic method is a high priority for control of the disease. Currently, there are two major diagnostic approaches for SARS. Detection of antibodies against SARS-CoV is a sensitive and specific diagnostic approach, but serconver