Skip to main content
. 2021 Jul 14;13(7):1077. doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics13071077

Table 1.

Comparison of the epidemiological, clinical, and radiological features of the diseases caused by SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2 [18].

Coronavirus SARS-CoV MERS-CoV SARS-CoV-2
Disease SARS MERS COVID-19
Geographical Origin Guangdong, China Saudi Arabia Hubei, China
Latency 2–7 days 2–14 days 11.5 days
(97.5% became symptomatic)
Contagious Period 10 days after onset of disease Once the virus isolated from infected patients Unknown
Fatality Rate ~10% ~36% ~2.3%
Reservoir Bats Bats Bats
Incidental Host Masked palm civets Dromedary camels Malayan pangolin
Transmission
  • Respiratory droplets

  • Close contact with diseased patients

  • Fecal-oral

  • Aerosol

  • Respiratory droplets

  • Close contact with diseased patients/ camels

  • Ingestion of camel milk

  • Respiratory droplets

  • Close contact with diseased patients

  • Fecal-oral (possibly)

  • Aerosol (possibly)

Clinical Features Starts as asymptomatic or mild disease, then acute upper respiratory distress and many organs’ failure leading to death. Individual’s variation. Vomiting and diarrhea are also reported.
Radiologic Features Ground-glass opacity was the most common radiologic finding on chest computed tomography. Most patients also developed marked lymphopenia, similar to what was observed in patients with SARS and MERS [22] (Non-specific to distinguish between three different diseases).