Is there an ideal animal model for SARS?
The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 was controlled by public health measures at a time when specific interventions such as antiviral drugs, vaccines and immunotherapy were not available. Since then, several animal models have been developed for the study of SARS and, although no model replicates the human disease in all aspects, the use of animal models for SARS has led to the establishment of several important principles for vaccine and immunotherapy. Consistency and reproducibility of findings in a given model must be demonstrated to establish the superiority of one model over others. Here, we suggest aspects of an ideal animal model for studies of SARS pathogenesis and vaccine development and present our assessment of the strengths and limitations of the current animal models for SARS.
This paper examines some randomly selected sport mascots from lists of All African Games and African Cup of Nations events from 2000 to 2013. Selected mascots and their names are subjected to semiotic analysis premised on the Saussurean structuralist theory. Surface structure signs and symbols are analysed to determine their deep significances through the medium of syntagmatic analysis.