News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The Ministry of Health of China on Friday, Dec 26, told the World Health Organization (WHO) of a suspected case of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), according to a WHO update. The patient, a 32-year-old freelance television worker from the Panyu District of Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, experienced fever and headache Dec 16 and sought medical help on the 20th.

(CIDRAP News) – No more SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) cases have cropped up in the wake of the single case reported in Taiwan last week, and quarantine or self-monitoring orders for most of the patient's contacts have been lifted.

(CIDRAP News) – A Taiwanese scientist has contracted SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), probably while studying the SARS coronavirus in a laboratory, the Taiwan Department of Health reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – Despite a flood of new federal aid, the states are only modestly better prepared to cope with major health emergencies now than they were before the terrorist attacks of 2001, according to a report by a nonprofit public health advocacy group.

(CIDRAP News) – It will probably take between 2 and 5 years to develop a SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) vaccine, depending on the scale of future SARS outbreaks, the World Health Organization (WHO) predicted today.

(CIDRAP News) – House cats and ferrets can be infected with the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) coronavirus and can pass it to other cats and ferrets, raising the possibility that they could also spread the virus to people, according to researchers from the Netherlands and Hong Kong.

(CIDRAP News) – Researchers who met in Geneva this week agreed that any clusters of severe SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) cases would probably be detected quickly but that isolated cases might not be, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – A new document from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lays out a long list of recommendations for providing the rigorous surveillance and containment that are seen as the keys to controlling SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), should the disease reappear.

(CIDRAP News) – In a new report on the epidemiology of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), the World Health Organization (WHO) affirms that the disease is spread by respiratory droplets, not by airborne particles.

The 35-page report, issued Oct 17, also says the risk of transmission to others peaks when a person has been sick for about 10 days and that children are rarely affected by SARS.

(CIDRAP News) – Chinese investigators have found that animal traders in Guangdong Province were more likely to carry an antibody to the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) coronavirus than other local groups were, supporting the belief that the virus might have come from animals.