News Updates on SARS...The March 27 and 28, 2003 issues of the Washington Post and Reuters published several articles on the current world health crisis associated with the onslaught of a new respiratory disease, called severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. One article focuses on the anxiety associated with newly emerging diseases and how some diseases like SARS can spread easily and rapidly around the world. It also points to the difficulties these diseases pose for health officials. In addition, the article traces the symptoms of one individual, who like many of the cases in the U.S., had recently traveled to Asia. According to the article, in the U.S. twenty patients were hospitalized, 14 developed pneumonia, and one required a ventilator to breathe--but all have recovered.

View the entire article: 2003 March 27. (This website may require that one complete an anonymous online user survey before accessing.)

Another March 27th article in the Post reported that officials are saying at least 80 percent of people with SARS appear to recover, but the rest become critically ill and about half of them die. According to the article, victims who are older than 40 and have other health problems are most likely to develop life-threatening symptoms. The article also reports that according to doctors, a distinctive pattern of symptoms has become clear: two to seven days after being exposed, patients suddenly develop a high fever, start shaking and experience chills, shortness of breath and a dry cough. Some also experience headache, muscular stiffness, loss of appetite, malaise, confusion, rash and diarrhea. Laboratory tests show that white blood cell and platelet counts drop in some patients, and chest X-rays show a pattern in which a cloudy area appears in one part of a lung and then spreads across both of them. According to the article, after a week or so, 80 to 90 percent of patients improve, but the other 10 to 20 percent worsen and require intensive care. In terms of the cause of the disease, the article quotes the World Health Organization as saying that SARS "is a serious new disease caused by a newly recognized pathogen."

View the entire article: 2003 March 26. (This website may require that one complete an anonymous online user survey before accessing.)

Related articles can be found in the March 27 and 28, 2003 Reuters: 2003 March 27 and 2003 March 27. (This website may require that one complete an anonymous online user survey before accessing.)