PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 8, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hemispherx Biopharma, Inc. (NYSE Amex:HEB) (the "Company") reported a recent study, published in the December 20th issue of Virology (2009) by a consortium of researchers at Utah State University and the University of North Carolina, on a newly developed animal model of severe acute respiratory disease syndrome (SARS) which, according to the authors, " ... largely mimicked human disease". SARS emerged in 2002 in the Guangdong province of Southern China as a new infectious respiratory disease characterized by influenza-like symptoms with a very high mortality rate. The researchers characterized and adapted a new strain of the SARS virus (SARS-CoV) to mice that was 100% lethal and was associated with the overproduction of cytokines and severe lung pathology (Day CW, et al. Virology, 395:210-222, 2009).
