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Clian
Kai-Zhong
THE EPIDEMIOLOGY AND
CONTROL
OF
SARS
SARS or "atypical pneumonia"
is
now
affecting Hong
Kong
and
more
than
a
thousand people are infected; a
minority
have
died from
it.
Even the
economy
is
adversely afiected.
lt is
now
widely recognized to
be
due to a
new
strain of the coronavirus but little
is
known
about
its
epidemiology,
infectivity, clinical treatment, prognosis
and complications.
A
striking
point
is
the
high proportion
ol
medical and nursing
staff
infected. Spread
is
by
close
contact, through droplet infections;
lamily
members
often get
it;
the Amoy
Gardens aggregation
of
cases was due
to faulty
sewerage drainage.
Mechanical
carriage
of the virus
by
rats
and
cockroaches may
well
occur,
even
though they are not hosts. Environmental
hygiene is
paramount.
The portal
of
entry
is
the
respiratory or the digestive
tract. After a latent period of
2-1
0
days,
fever, cough, headache, chills,
dianhea
and
shortness-of-breath occur.
An
auto-immune phenomenon destroys
the lungs by mistake and steroids
are
essential. Ribavirin
is
used frequently
but interferon
and
gamma globulins,
less frequently. We are still ignorant on
the
period
ol virus
shedding through
fecal material.
For
prevention,
a
healthy
lifestyle,
balanced
diet,
physical
exercises; epi-centers require strict
isolation and quarantine procedures;
meticulous cleaning
of all
touch-on
objects
in public
areas;
environmental
hygiene;
facial
masks and frequent
hand washing help but the
vaccine
requires
a
year
to
make.
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