Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) seems to be spreading quickly throughout the world. In fact, some people in Toronto were asked to quarantine themselves in order to curb the spread of this elusive disease.

The World Health Organization reports:

Should we be more concerned about this?
Do you think the war in Iraq is distracting us too much from discovering the cause and means to eradicate this disease?

Should we be concerned about this? Absolutely, as with the outbreak of any new, serious disease.

I don't think the war is distracting us from this problem, as far as I can tell.

In general, I think that emerging infectious diseases are going to be a major problem in the 21st century. Drug resistance is a very serious problem. As a pharmacist, I see that this has increased quite a bit over the last couple of decades.

Some causes of this problem:

Physicians prescribing antibiotics for diseases which are not caused by bacteria. (Such as most upper respiratory infections, which are caused by viri.) This does not help the disease at all, and exposes bacteria normally in the body to antibiotics, which causes them to develop resistance.

Patients stopping antibiotics when they feel better in a few days, rather than taking them for a full treatment period (usually something like 7 to 10 days.) Instead of eliminating the bacteria that cause the disease completely, this allows enough of them to survive to develop resistance.

Use of broad-spectrum antibiotics (those that kill a wide variety of bacteria) when more specific antibiotics would do as good a job. Unfortunately, this is often necessary when antibiotics must be started before cultures which identify the organisms and their sensitivities to various drugs are available; but when such information is available, the broad-spectrum antibiotics should be replaced with more specific antibiotics.

Thank you for raising a very important issue.

I gotta second Victoria one this one. You can be sure that, while the War eclipses all else in the media, the wonderful men and women at the CDC and the NIH are hard at work. Thank goodness not everything is privatized, eh?

Jaime your right I think. I heard about this disease right before the start of the War but nothing since. I can't recall where the outbreak was at that point. (China or Japan). Please correct me if I am wrong.
I agree Victoria people do not follow doctors orders. Take the med. prescribed till gone.
I first heard don't panic. But after this summer with West Niles in the state of Illinois where I live we had the most reported cases of deaths.
I think this issue should not be put on a back burner. The people of the world should know more about this. I don't know how it is spread, when you think you should seek medical assistance.
I believe the symptoms are like an upper respiratory infection. Is there a fever, headache. muscles aches etc?
How are the people supposed to know when to seek medical help? And just how deadly this will become if people are not informed?

The issue isn't on the backburner, it just isn't getting the media coverage in the U.S. that it would otherwise. The CDC brought together a team of internationally renowned virologists to look at the problem and doctors believe that they have identified the virus and have devised a quick test that should be able to detect it.

It gets a lot of news here in Canada because there has been a bit of an "outbreak" in Toronto and that's where most of our media industry is centered. (In addition to a sizeable portion of the country's population.)

In answer to the second question, I agree with previous posts that those whose profession it is to deal with such diseases are hard at work, and without distraction. While the media may be numbing our brains with war footage, the problem is continuing to be addressed.

I do believe, however, that we should be more concerned. The lack of media coverage could prevent some people from possibly identifying an outbreak in their area (or themselves). While it's all fine and good to know that people are out there still focusing solely on problems such as these, it can still be dangerous not to make sure the public is aware of a common threat such as this.

I think I may need to restate my second question. I was really trying to ask if our elected representatives are ignoring this in lieu of the war?

I remember Mr. Bush making a speech a few days ago in which he asked for nearly $75 billion to fund the War in Iraq and the rebuild. I have heard of no one, president or otherwise, who has asked for emergency funding for this. Please let me know if you have seen/read/heard otherwise.

IS emergency funding even necessary?

I will concede this is getting virtually no media or political coverage here in Georgia. Maybe it's just this corner of Georgia. If it's not the War in Iraq in the news it's something about the 3rd Infantry Division, possibly due to their proximity to downtown Savannah

I would say that our elected officials are, for the most part, ignoring SARS. If you recall, there are still many cities awaiting the funding for all those Homeland Security measures they are supposed to be taking to protect against chemical or biological attacks. If our elected officials can't handle getting the money or materials for a terrorist attack to all of our cities, how can we possibly expect them to adequately alert or prepare our cities and hospitals for a possible outbreak of SARS? Perhaps we should petition the CDC and Health Care coporations to increase their campaign donations in the future...

Victoria makes some excellent points on antibiotic resistance.

There's a real risk that, if the medical establishment focuses on 'glamorous' new diseases like SARS (remember Ebola, anyone?), which may or may not be dangerous in themselves, it may continue to ignore the duller housekeeping issues that are causing increased bacterial resistance.

Additionally, not every country in the world classifies all anti-boitics as prescription-only medicines. In some places, you can just buy penicillin from the local drugstore the way you buy aspirin or baked beans. (Spain does this, or at least it used to.)

And on overprescribing, I think some fault lays with us, the patients, who often feel that unless we get a prescription we haven't really been treated properly. During a flue outbreak, it must get very wearing explaining to hundreds of patients per day that they don't NEED a prescription, they just need to stay in bed for a couple of weeks and drink plenty of fluid.

I saw this on a Russian debate forum....

I think this is defiently a problem that is to be concerned about

I don't think the war in Iraq is keeping the research & Development people distracted. I am sure the CDC and/or other nations & their health organizations are looking for the cause, the way it spreads & how to kill the booger as we speak

Working for a SARS vaccine



just a small side note:

This SARS thing reminds me of Stephen King's The Stand, where a genetically-engineered Flu Virus gets loose from it's vial via a clumsy scientist & spreads around the world, killing 90% of the Earth's population

Good night

I heard today on the news the first case of SARS in the United States was in Florida. I was getting ready for work, but I thought I heard something that it is related it is a form of another virus that was going around quite a few yrs. ago and that they are close to finding an antibodic for it. If someone heard anything on this I would be very interested to know more. Thanks.

I agree that our elected officials havent taken a stand on this as of yet. But then again look how long it took anybody to realize that AIDS was a serious illness. When AIDS first came along it was THEIR problem and nobody thought we would have anything to worry about,Look how many people died before it was recognized as a killer disease. SARS came out of the orient so as of now why bother taking a stand here in the good ole US of A?. I am sure that once a couple hundred thousand people die of it one of our elected officials will decide to take a stand on this.On a lighter note i had to laugh at Victoria about people stopping taking antibiotics, because i just recently did the very same thing,stopped taking them cause i felt better only to have illness come back and nail my butt good.

UJ, its been a while since you last posted this thread. Since then SARS has picked up steam in Toronto. Any insight as to what its like living there now? I read that MLB has warned teams to take precautions, etc.

On a broader note, how about the level of increased danger because a repressive country like China sits on the far greater number of cases than what they were letting on to? I don't think they can use panic as an excuse.

Or can they?