Sars

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by the virus SARS-CoV-1, the first identified strain of the SARS-related coronavirus. The first known cases occurred in November 2002, and the syndrome caused the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak. In the 2010s, Chinese scientists traced the virus through the intermediary of Asian palm civets to cave-dwelling horseshoe bats in Xiyang Yi Ethnic Township, Yunnan. SARS was a relatively rare disease; at the end of the epidemic in June 2003¹, the incidence was 8,422 cases with a case fatality rate (CFR) of 11%. No cases of SARS-CoV-1 have been reported worldwide since 2004. In December 2019, a second strain of SARS-CoV was identified: SARS-CoV-2. This strain causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the disease behind the COVID-19 pandemic.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by the virus SARS-CoV-1, the first identified strain of the SARS-related coronavirus. The first known cases occurred in November 2002, and the syndrome caused the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak. In the 2010s, Chinese scientists traced the virus through the intermediary of Asian palm civets to cave-dwelling horseshoe bats in Xiyang Yi Ethnic Township, Yunnan. SARS was a relatively rare disease; at the end of the epidemic in June 2003, the incidence was 8,422 cases with a case fatality rate (CFR) of 11%. No cases of SARS-CoV-1 have been reported worldwide since 2004. In December 2019, a second strain of SARS-CoV was identified: SARS-CoV-2. This strain causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the disease behind the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prevention

In 2017 immunologist Anthony Fauci said the CDC had developed a vaccine for SARS-COV-1 and placed it in the Strategic National Stockpile. The vaccine was not deployed because public health measures defeated the outbreak. A vaccine developed by a team led by Peter Hotez sits in a freezer at the University of Texas. To prevent the spread of SARS in a hospital setting, detection and strict clinical isolation is combined with droplet and contact contamination prevention measures through the use of personal protective equipment. Tracing and quarantine of people who contact infected individuals is effective in preventing the spread in the community. Public health measures ended the 2002 SARS outbreak. No cases have been reported since 2004. Precautions recommended should an outbreak reoccur include: Hand-washing with soap and water, or use of alcohol-based hand sanitizer Wearing masks and gloves Washing the personal items of someone with SARS in hot, soapy water (eating utensils, dishes, bedding, etc.) Disinfect any surfaces which may have come in contact with any bodily fluids of an infected person. A 2017 meta-analysis found that for medical professionals wearing N-95 masks could reduce the chances of getting sick up to 80% compared to no mask. A screening process was also put in place at airports to monitor air travel to and from affected countries. SARS-CoV is most infectious in severely ill patients, which usually occurs during the second week of illness. This delayed infectious period meant that quarantine was highly effective; people who were isolated before day five of their illness rarely transmitted the disease to others. As of 2017, the CDC was still working to make federal and local rapid-response guidelines and recommendations in the event of a reappearance of the virus.

Vaccine

Vaccines can help the immune system to create enough antibodies and decrease a risk of side effects like arm pain, fever, and headache. According to research papers published in 2005¹ and 2006, the identification and development of novel vaccines and medicines to treat SARS was a priority for governments and public health agencies around the world. In early 2004, an early clinical trial on volunteers was planned. A major researcher's 2016 request, however, demonstrated that no field-ready SARS vaccine had been completed because likely market-driven priorities had ended funding.

Prognosis

Several consequent reports from China on some recovered SARS patients showed severe long-time sequelae. The most typical diseases include, among other things, pulmonary fibrosis, osteoporosis, and femoral necrosis, which have led in some cases to the complete loss of working ability or even self-care ability of people who have recovered from SARS. As a result of quarantine procedures, some of the post-SARS patients have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder.

Epidemiology

The epidemic origin of SARS was first reported in Foshan, China, on November 16, 2002. On February 28, 2003, Dr. Carlo Urbani, the WHO physician, formally identified SARS in patient zero in Vietnam French Hospital of Hanoi in Vietnam, died from the virus in Bangkok. His contributions on the epistemological traces of the virus have been highly regarded by the WHO. No new cases of SARS have been reported since 2004. At the end of the epidemic in June 2003, the reported incidence was 8,422 cases with a case fatality rate (CFR) of 11%. The case fatality rate (CFR) ranges from 0% to 50% depending on the age group of the patient. Patients under 24 were least likely to die (less than 1%); those 65 and older were most likely to die (over 55%). As with MERS and COVID-19, SARS resulted in significantly more deaths of males than females.

Spread to other regions

The epidemic reached the public spotlight in February 2003, when an American businessman traveling from China, Johnny Chen, became affected by pneumonia-like symptoms while on a flight to Singapore. The plane stopped in Hanoi, Vietnam, where the patient died in Hanoi French Hospital. Several of the medical staff who treated him soon developed the same disease despite basic hospital procedures. Italian doctor Carlo Urbani identified the threat and communicated it to WHO and the Vietnamese government; he later died from the disease. The severity of the symptoms and the infection among hospital staff alarmed global health authorities, who were fearful of another emergent pneumonia epidemic. On 12 March 2003, the WHO issued a global alert, followed by a health alert by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Local transmission of SARS took place in Toronto, Ottawa, San Francisco, Ulaanbaatar, Manila, Singapore, Taiwan, Hanoi and Hong Kong whereas within China it spread to Guangdong, Jilin, Hebei, Hubei, Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Shanxi, Tianjin, and Inner Mongolia.

Hong Kong

event of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) occurred The disease spread in Hong Kong from Liu Jianlun, a Guangdong doctor who was treating patients at Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital. He arrived in February and stayed on the ninth floor of the Metropole Hotel in Kowloon, infecting 16 of the hotel visitors. Those visitors traveled to Canada, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam, spreading SARS to those locations. Another larger cluster of cases in Hong Kong centred on the Amoy Gardens housing estate. Its spread is suspected to have been facilitated by defects in its bathroom drainage system that allowed sewer gases including virus particles to vent into the room. Bathroom fans exhausted the gases and wind carried the contagion to adjacent downwind complexes. Concerned citizens in Hong Kong worried that information was not reaching people quickly enough and created a website called sosick.org, which eventually forced the Hong Kong government to provide information related to SARS in a timely manner. The first cohort of affected people were discharged from hospital on 29 March 2003.

Canada

The first case of SARS in Toronto was identified on 23 February 2003. Beginning with an elderly woman, Kwan Sui-Chu, who had returned from a trip to Hong Kong and died on 5 March, the virus eventually infected 257 individuals in the province of Ontario. The trajectory of this outbreak is typically divided into two phases, the first centring around her son Tse Chi Kwai, who infected other patients at the Scarborough Grace Hospital and died on 13 March. The second major wave of cases was clustered around accidental exposure among patients, visitors, and staff within the North York General Hospital. The WHO officially removed Toronto from its list of infected areas by the end of June 2003. The official response by the Ontario provincial government and Canadian federal government has been widely criticized in the years following the outbreak. Brian Schwartz, vice-chair of Ontario's SARS Scientific Advisory Committee, described public health officials' preparedness and emergency response at the time of the outbreak as "very, very basic and minimal at best". Critics of the response often cite poorly outlined and enforced protocol for protecting healthcare workers and identifying infected patients as a major contributing factor to the continued spread of the virus. The atmosphere of fear and uncertainty surrounding the outbreak resulted in staffing issues in area hospitals when healthcare workers elected to resign rather than risk exposure to SARS.

Identification of virus

In late February 2003, Italian doctor Carlo Urbani was called into The French Hospital of Hanoi to look at Johnny Chen, an American businessman who had fallen ill with what doctors thought was a bad case of influenza. Urbani realized that Chen's ailment was probably a new and highly contagious disease. He immediately notified the WHO. He also persuaded the Vietnamese Health Ministry to begin isolating patients and screening travelers, thus slowing the early pace of the epidemic. He subsequently contracted the disease himself, and died in March 2003. Malik Peiris and his colleagues became the first to isolate the virus that causes SARS, a novel coronavirus now known as SARS-CoV-1. By June 2003, Peiris, together with his long-time collaborators Leo Poon and Guan Yi, has developed a rapid diagnostic test for SARS-CoV-1 using real-time polymerase chain reaction. The CDC and Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory identified the SARS genome in April 2003. Scientists at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands demonstrated that the SARS coronavirus fulfilled Koch's postulates thereby suggesting it as the causative agent. In the experiments, macaques infected with the virus developed the same symptoms as human SARS patients.

Containment

The World Health Organization declared severe acute respiratory syndrome contained on 5 July 2003. The containment was achieved through successful public health measures. In the following months, four SARS cases were reported in China between December 2003 and January 2004. While SARS-CoV-1 probably persists as a potential zoonotic threat in its original animal reservoir, human-to-human transmission of this virus may be considered eradicated because no human case has been documented since four minor, brief, subsequent outbreaks in 2004.

Society and culture

Fear of contracting the virus from consuming infected wild animals resulted in public bans and reduced business for meat markets in southern China and Hong Kong. The WHO declared the end of the pandemic on 24 March 2004.

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1371519960 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.