Situation Hopeless, But Not Serious

Abstract

On 1 February 2003, the Chinese authorities in Guangdong Province reported that 300 people had become ill and five had died in an outbreak of a mysterious respiratory illness. On 28 February a Chinese doctor, infected in Guangdong, stayed at the Metropole Hotel in Hong Kong. Twelve other guests at the hotel contracted the illness. When the infected guests left the hotel and fiew home they carried the virus to five countries in three different continents. Two remained in Hong Kong. In Canada the disease spread through two extended families. In Vietnam and Hong Kong health workers became infected. An infected health worker from Singapore flew to New York then on to Frankfurt. Meanwhile, the disease continued to spread throughout China. On 24 March, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that Sars is a new form of the coronavirus, a pathogen known to affect humans, but not a global killer. Strict containment of all known cases is vital. A team of WHO doctors had been in Beijing but was waiting for permission to visit other provinces where there were thought to be clusters of cases. After a week of waiting, the doctors were allowed to go to Guangdong. Under intense pressure and criticism from WHO, the Chinese Health Ministry announced the outbreak had begun five months earlier. They had far more cases than the 40 previously announced — nearly 400. On 5 April, China apologised for its slow response to the Sars outbreak. There were allegations that officials had covered up the extent of the spread of the disease.