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UNITED NATIONS - Monkeys experimentally infected with a new coronavirus have developed an illness similar to SARS, the mysterious human respiratory disease, and it is now almost certain the coronavirus causes the disease, a World Health Organization official said yesterday. Preliminary findings show the monkeys developed an illness resembling SARS after the coronavirus was put in their nostrils. Some monkeys developed pneumonia and examination of their lungs under a microscope showed the coronavirus caused a pattern of lung damage similar to that in affected humans. Such findings include the formation of syncytia, or giant cells, in the lungs. Even if the animal experiments show the coronavirus can infect humans and animals, researchers must still show the coronavirus is the cause of SARS and not another respiratory infection that is occurring by coincidence or as a co-infection with another microbe

Dr. David L. Heymann, executive director in charge of communicable diseases for W.H.O., said the agency ''is 99 percent sure'' that SARS is caused by the new coronavirus based on the monkey experiments in the Netherlands. Experiments on animals are necessary because the lack of an effective treatment for SARS and the relatively high death rate make it unethical to conduct such experiments on humans. The monkey experiments are essential in fulfilling the steps known as Koch's postulates that are needed to establish proof that a virus or other microbe causes a disease. Applying the postulates to SARS, scientists must determine whether injecting the coronavirus into animals causes similar symptoms to those that humans experience. A formal announcement that the likely cause of SARS has been found could come as early as Wednesday. The Chinese government's decision to allow the W.H.O. team to visit military hospitals ''is a welcome indication of China's willingness to come to terms with the SARS outbreak on the mainland,'' the organization stated. On Monday, China's president, Hu Jintao, said on state television that he was ''very worried'' about SARS

Monkeys experimentally infected with a new coronavirus have developed an illness similar to the mysterious human respiratory disease, SARS, and it is now 99 percent certain that the coronavirus causes the disease, a World Health Organization official said here on Tuesday. Preliminary findings show that the monkeys developed an illness resembling SARS after the coronavirus was put in their nostrils. Some monkeys developed pneumonia and examination of their lungs under a microscope showed that the coronavirus caused a pattern of lung damage similar to that in affected humans. Such findings include the formation of giant cells in the lungs. [David L. Heymann], in addressing U.N. delegates and staff members on Tuesday, expressed hope that new tests aimed at the coronavirus would eventually help contain SARS

The gene maps were computer generated from viruses isolated from SARS cases in Canada and Asia. The maps detail the genetic sequencing of the nucleic acids, or nucleotides, in the virus. The maps generated by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and in Vancouver showed only ''a trivial'' difference in 15 among the 29,727 nucleotides in the coronavirus, Dr. [Julie L. Gerberding] said. Known members of the coronavirus family typically contain from 29,000 to 31,000 nucleotides. Samples of the coronavirus used to generate the gene maps came from patients with SARS, and health officials say a new type of coronavirus remains the leading suspect of the respiratory ailment that has spread around the world. But to prove that this particular coronavirus causes SARS, scientists need also to see if animals that are infected with the virus become ill with the same disease. Officials of the Centers for Disease Control have said that they have isolated the new coronavirus from four suspected SARS cases in this country. Laboratories in the W.H.O. network have also isolated the coronavirus from SARS patients elsewhere. But the scientists have not reported the systematic studies of several laboratories testing the same samples using the same techniques. That will require testing thousands of specimens from SARS patients and healthy individuals for purposes of scientific comparison to prove that the coronavirus causes SARS

While there are anecdotal case studies of individuals behind some outbreaks, there is little concentrated research in the field. 'There hasn't been enough time, thinking and probing' to hazard more than a guess as to why superspreaders are responsible for so much of the spread of SARS, said Dr. Donald A. Henderson, the epidemiologist who led the global eradication of smallpox. Referring to a well-known study of a cold outbreak at the Eagle Heights Apartments in Madison, Wis., and to an early theory that the outbreak of more than 300 SARS cases in the Amoy Gardens apartment complex in Hong Kong was spread by cockroaches, he said: 'Don't blame the cockroaches. In Wisconsin, it wasn't the cockroaches, it was the kids.' Whoever put SARS in the Amoy Gardens sewage pipes -- and one regular visitor was a dialysis patient at the Prince of Wales Hospital while the airport worker was on the nebulizer -- would be a superspreader, helped by rusty pipes

Several SARS patients have infected more than 30 people, according to the World Health Organization. The biggest reported superspreader is a 26-year-old airport worker admitted to Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong in early March. He infected 112 people, including every doctor and nurse who treated him. Referring to a well-known study of a cold outbreak at the Eagle Heights Apartments in Madison, Wis., and to an early theory that the outbreak of more than 300 SARS cases in the Amoy Gardens apartment complex in Hong Kong was spread by cockroaches, he said: ''Don't blame the cockroaches. In Wisconsin, it wasn't the cockroaches, it was the kids.'' Whoever put SARS in the Amoy Gardens sewage pipes -- and one regular visitor was a dialysis patient at the Prince of Wales Hospital while the airport worker was on the nebulizer -- would be a superspreader, with the help of rusty pipes

Students who have been exposed to SARS and who do not have fever, cough, sneezing or other respiratory symptoms should be allowed to attend school, but should be vigilant for onset of symptoms of SARS, the federal health agency said. The reason for not excluding such students from school is that, so far, SARS has not been transmitted from affected individuals to other people through casual contact in schools or public gatherings in the United States

Passengers on airplane flights have greatly aided the spread of SARS through the world, health officials say. Most passengers became ill after they arrived at their destination, but some seem to have transmitted SARS to passengers seated next to them or in the two rows in front or behind them. ''The virus has not circulated within airplanes to a wide number of people within airplanes and we have no reason to believe that it is circulating in airports,'' Dr. [David L. Heymann] said. Scientists do not know how SARS originated. Chinese officials have suggested that the first case was in a businessman in Foshan, a small industrial city in Guangdong Province. But, Dr. Heymann said, scientists do not know whether all subsequent SARS cases can somehow be traced to that businessman or whether the later cases resulted from repeated new introductions of the SARS agent from some unknown source in nature, like an animal. Dr. Heymann said that the coronavirus that is suspected of causing SARS was first detected in Hong Kong by one of the 17 members of a collaborating network that W.H.O. formed to combat SARS. The virus was next identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and subsequently by all the other network laboratories

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday issued the first guidelines for school administrators and health officials in determining what to do if a student has SARS, the mysterious respiratory disease. Students who have been exposed to SARS and who do not have fever, cough, sneezing or other respiratory symptoms should be allowed to attend school, but should be vigilant for onset of symptoms of SARS, the federal health agency said. The guidelines say that an individual with symptoms that do not progress to meet the case definition of SARS within 72 hours of onset of the initial symptoms can return to school or work. To be classified as a case of SARS, a patient must have a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher and symptoms like a dry cough

Health officials in Hong Kong and Singapore have warned their citizens that the agent that causes a mysterious respiratory disease has spread so far in their communities that it would be hard to bring under control anytime soon, if ever. 'Singaporeans must be psychologically prepared for the problem to stay with us for some time,' said Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore's deputy prime minister. Hong Kong and Singapore officials began emphasizing new measures to slow the spread of the disease, known as severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. But they backed away from suggestions that they may be able to get rid of it completely. The World Health Organization, however, remained cautiously optimistic that the disease could be kept in check. Dr. Leung Pak-yin, the Hong Kong deputy director of health, said that residents should be concerned that the disease could be spread through contaminated objects, particularly if their apartment buildings developed large numbers of cases. 'We believe that every citizen could become a carrier of the virus,' especially if people do not follow practices like hand washing and the wearing of face masks, he said. The cause of SARS is unknown but officials are almost certain that it is a virus, and they strongly suspect that the culprit is a previously unknown member of the coronavirus family. Epidemiologists have traced most SARS cases to close person-to-person contact. That finding initially led officials to believe that they could break the SARS chain by isolating patients and their contacts and by requiring health workers to use standard infection control measures in caring for patients