TABLE 1.

Summary of epidemiological data for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.

Epidemiological/biological characteristics	SARS-CoV	MERS-CoV	SARS-CoV-2
Transmissibility, date of outbreak	Pandemic, 2002/2003	Epidemic† 2012	Pandemic, 2019
Origin of outbreak	Guangdong province, China	Saudi Arabia	Wuhan, Hubei province, China
Natural reservoir host	Horseshoe bats	Horseshoe bats	Horseshoe bats
Intermediate host	Probably palm civet, raccoon dogs, Chinese ferret badger‡	Camel/dromedary	Probably pangolins
Acquired/incidental host	Chinese ferret badgers, raccoon dog	Not known‡	Zoo tiger, lion, mink, cats, dog
Experimental positive transmission	Palm civets, Chinese ferret badgers, domestic cats, cynomolgus macaques, Golden Syrian hamsters, common marmosets	Rhesus macaques, common marmoset, New Zealand white rabbits, Transgenic mice	Ferrets, cats, dogs
Human transmission	Human-to-human	Camel/Human-to-human	Human-to-human
Total positive global infections	8096	2499	5 229 444
Total global death	774	858	338 480
Case fatality rate	9.6%	34.5%¶	6.5%§

MERS-CoV, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus; SARS-CoV, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus; SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2.

^†, MERS-CoV was not considered of pandemic potential.

^‡, No MERS-CoV pathogenesis was observed in small animals.

^¶, Cheng et al. (2007), WHO (2019a).

^§, WHO (2020).