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Within a month, health authorities in 14 countries had identified more than 1,300 cases of respiratory illness that all traced back to those brief encounters somewhere in the hotel. Within five months, the illness — dubbed SARS, for severe acute respiratory syndrome — had caused 8,098 illnesses, and 774 deaths in 26 countries around the world.

Two men in a single household fell ill and tested positive for the virus. One of the two died. Two other members of the same household were sick at the same time with similar symptoms; one of those men died as well.

It's not clear what kind of testing has been done. In fact, very little information about the cases has been revealed

is not known at this point whether the viruses jumped directly from bats to people — say through exposure to bat guano or urine — or from bats to other animals and then to humans.