Ribavirin has been used in urgency to treat SARS patients recently.In order to study its antiviral mechanism by photolabeling approach, we have synthesized and characterized 5-azido-1-(-D-ribofuranosyl-1,2,4-triazole-3-carboxiamide 1 as a photolabeling probe of ribavirin.The azidotriazole nucleoside showed rapid and clean photochemical reaction, suggesting that 1 is a promising probe to study the antiviral mechanism of ribarivin by photolabeling.