Several zoonotic coronaviruses are associated with bats, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is another zoonotic coronavirus likely originating in bats. SARS-CoV causes the disease severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in humans. The first documented case of SARS was in November 2002 in Foshan, China. It became an epidemic, affecting 28 countries around the world with 8,096 cases and 774 deaths. The natural reservoir of SARS-CoV was identified as bats, with the Chinese rufous horseshoe bat considered a particularly strong candidate after a coronavirus was recovered from a colony that had 95% nucleotide sequence similarity to SARS-CoV. There is uncertainty on whether or not animals like Himalayan palm civets and raccoon dogs were intermediate hosts that facilitated the spread of the virus from bats to humans, or if humans acquired the virus directly from bats.
