Q&As in 2003

To the friends and relatives of the 800-plus people slain by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), this might seem like a callous question. But SARS barely registers a blip in the annual body count caused by infectious disease. Influenza is likely to kill up to half-a-million people in 2003, whereas the death tolls from malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS will each run to seven figures. So, when the outbreak is put into perspective, was the panic over SARS really warranted?

Viruses such as HIV and those that cause influenza have often been described as 'wily' because they mutate rapidly, a trait that helps them to evade drugs or the human immune system. But so far, the SARS virus seems remarkably invariant: the genome sequences of 14 isolates from patients in Singapore, Toronto, China and Hong Kong have not revealed any changes of real consequence¹⁷.