In February 2003, a new severe respiratory illness emerged in Guangdong Province, China. The World Health Organization global surveillance system alerted travelers to a new disease. The search began for the cause and eleven research labs from countries around the world began to work together to find and analyze what became known as SARS. This “collaborative multicenter research project” proceeded through daily teleconferences, shared electron microscopy photos, and viral genome sequences. Scientists traded samples, debated results, made decisions about experimental dead ends, and in one week a candidate virus was isolated nearly simultaneously in two labs. Three weeks later, confirmatory studies permitted the announcement of a novel coronavirus as the cause of SARS. This model of health science collaboration at a global scale was unique, the results remarkable, speedy and effective. The virus was, according to WHO, “collectively… discovered.”
Read more here.