Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome : Description, Epidemiology, and Control Measures

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (hereinafter SARS) is the first severe and readily transmissible new disease to emerge in the 21st century 1. The presence of this infectious agent was first recognized in early November 2002 in the province of Guangdong in the People\u27s Republic of China. SARS rapidly spread from there to other parts of the world, notably Southeast Asia and Canada. According to data compiled in August 2003, altogether 8,422 cases occurred in 29 countries. The most severely affected countries were China (including the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong and Taiwan), Canada, Singapore and Vietnam, all of which experienced outbreaks before the issue of global alerts by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 12 and 15 March, 2003. Nine hundred and eight persons died in the most affected countries, with only eight deaths occurring in the additional 25 countries where cases were reported