- Oct 8, 2002
- 42,411
- 44,326
SARS is a different disease
Coronaviruses
Coronaviruses are a priority for NIAID. Three forms have emerged over the past two decades. These cause the serious and widespread diseases SARS, MERS, and COVID-19.
www.niaid.nih.gov
Three of the coronaviruses can have more serious outcomes in people, and those diseases are SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) which emerged in late 2002 and disappeared by 2004; MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome), which emerged in 2012 and remains in circulation in camels; and COVID-19, which emerged in December 2019 from China and a global effort is under way to contain its spread. COVID-19 is caused by the coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2.