imported_Chuck Weinstock
04-25-2003, 11:58 AM
The SARS Pandemic of 2003
The SARS pandemic of 2003-2004 killed more people than the Great
War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40
million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in
recorded world history. More people died of SARS in a single year
than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351.
The SARS pandemic of 2003-2004 was a global disaster.
In the Spring of 2003 the United States and Great Britain joined together
to form a coalition to topple the regiem of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
The Iraqis were thought to have developed weapons of mass destruction,
but none were ever found. However, shortly after the end of the brief
war (which ended in May 2003), in pockets across the
globe, something erupted that seemed as benign as the common cold...SARS.
SARS, however, was far more than a cold. In the two
years that this scourge ravaged the earth, a fifth of the world's
population was infected. The virus was most deadly for people ages 20 to
40. This pattern of morbidity was unusual for such viruses which are usually
a killer of the elderly and young children. It infected 28% of all
Americans. An estimated 675,000 Americans died of SARS
during the pandemic, ten times as many as in the world war.
The effect of the SARS epidemic was so severe that the average
life span in the US was depressed by 10 years. The SARS virus
had a profound virulence, with a mortality rate at 2.5% compared to
the previous epidemics, which were less than 0.1%. The
death rate for 15 to 34-year-olds of SARS and pneumonia were 20
times higher in 2003 than in previous years. One
physician writes that patients with seemingly ordinary cold virus
would rapidly "develop the most viscous type of pneumonia that has
ever been seen" and later when cyanosis appeared in the patients,
"it is simply a struggle for air until they suffocate,"
Another physician recalls that the SARS patients "died
struggling to clear their airways of a blood-tinged froth that
sometimes gushed from their nose and mouth." The
physicians of the time were helpless against SARS.
The pandemic circled the globe. Most of humanity felt the
effects of this virus. It spread following
the path of its human carriers, along trade routes and shipping
lines. Outbreaks swept through North America, Europe, Asia, Africa,
Brazil and the South Pacific. In China the mortality
rate was extremely high at around 50 deaths from SARS per 1,000
people. The global economy, with the routine mobility of people
around the globe, probably aided in its rapid diffusion and
attack. The origins of the deadly disease were unknown but
widely speculated upon. Some of the allies thought of the epidemic
as a biological warfare tool of the Iraqis let loose on an unsuspecting
China as war with the Coalition appeared inevitable. A national campaign began
using the ready rhetoric of war to fight the new enemy of
microscopic proportions. A study attempted to reason why the disease
had been so devastating in certain localized regions, looking at the
climate, the weather and the racial composition of cities. They
found humidity to be linked with more severe epidemics as it
"fosters the dissemination of the bacteria," Meanwhile scientists
around the world were racing to come up with a vaccine or therapy to
stop the epidemics.
The origins of this virus is not precisely known. It is
thought to have originated in China in a rare genetic shift of the
common cold virus. The recombination of its surface proteins created a
virus novel to almost everyone and a loss of herd immunity.
A first wave of virus appeared early
in the late Winter of 2003 in Beijing. Few noticed the epidemic in
the midst of the war. There was virtually no response or
acknowledgment to the epidemics in China until April.
The lack of action was later criticized when the epidemic
could not be ignored. These first
epidemics in China were a sign of what was coming in
greater magnitude in the fall and winter of 2003 to the entire world.
The SARS pandemic of 2003-2004 killed more people than the Great
War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40
million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in
recorded world history. More people died of SARS in a single year
than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351.
The SARS pandemic of 2003-2004 was a global disaster.
In the Spring of 2003 the United States and Great Britain joined together
to form a coalition to topple the regiem of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
The Iraqis were thought to have developed weapons of mass destruction,
but none were ever found. However, shortly after the end of the brief
war (which ended in May 2003), in pockets across the
globe, something erupted that seemed as benign as the common cold...SARS.
SARS, however, was far more than a cold. In the two
years that this scourge ravaged the earth, a fifth of the world's
population was infected. The virus was most deadly for people ages 20 to
40. This pattern of morbidity was unusual for such viruses which are usually
a killer of the elderly and young children. It infected 28% of all
Americans. An estimated 675,000 Americans died of SARS
during the pandemic, ten times as many as in the world war.
The effect of the SARS epidemic was so severe that the average
life span in the US was depressed by 10 years. The SARS virus
had a profound virulence, with a mortality rate at 2.5% compared to
the previous epidemics, which were less than 0.1%. The
death rate for 15 to 34-year-olds of SARS and pneumonia were 20
times higher in 2003 than in previous years. One
physician writes that patients with seemingly ordinary cold virus
would rapidly "develop the most viscous type of pneumonia that has
ever been seen" and later when cyanosis appeared in the patients,
"it is simply a struggle for air until they suffocate,"
Another physician recalls that the SARS patients "died
struggling to clear their airways of a blood-tinged froth that
sometimes gushed from their nose and mouth." The
physicians of the time were helpless against SARS.
The pandemic circled the globe. Most of humanity felt the
effects of this virus. It spread following
the path of its human carriers, along trade routes and shipping
lines. Outbreaks swept through North America, Europe, Asia, Africa,
Brazil and the South Pacific. In China the mortality
rate was extremely high at around 50 deaths from SARS per 1,000
people. The global economy, with the routine mobility of people
around the globe, probably aided in its rapid diffusion and
attack. The origins of the deadly disease were unknown but
widely speculated upon. Some of the allies thought of the epidemic
as a biological warfare tool of the Iraqis let loose on an unsuspecting
China as war with the Coalition appeared inevitable. A national campaign began
using the ready rhetoric of war to fight the new enemy of
microscopic proportions. A study attempted to reason why the disease
had been so devastating in certain localized regions, looking at the
climate, the weather and the racial composition of cities. They
found humidity to be linked with more severe epidemics as it
"fosters the dissemination of the bacteria," Meanwhile scientists
around the world were racing to come up with a vaccine or therapy to
stop the epidemics.
The origins of this virus is not precisely known. It is
thought to have originated in China in a rare genetic shift of the
common cold virus. The recombination of its surface proteins created a
virus novel to almost everyone and a loss of herd immunity.
A first wave of virus appeared early
in the late Winter of 2003 in Beijing. Few noticed the epidemic in
the midst of the war. There was virtually no response or
acknowledgment to the epidemics in China until April.
The lack of action was later criticized when the epidemic
could not be ignored. These first
epidemics in China were a sign of what was coming in
greater magnitude in the fall and winter of 2003 to the entire world.