Earthfiles

"I think we might find that SARS causes quite a massive immune response on the part of the human host ­ that the virus is able to trick the sick human host and have it over react. ...Maybe the way this SARS disease hurts the host is almost like the host turning on itself (in an auto-immune way)."

- Donald Low, M. D., Chief of Microbiology, Mt. Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada

April 4, 2003 Evening Update:

STATEMENT BY TOMMY G. THOMPSON
Secretary of Health and Human Services
Regarding Executive Order on Quarantinable Diseases

"The President today signed an executive order adding SARS to the list of quarantinable communicable diseases under the Public Health Service Act. The president signed the order after he received a detailed briefing on SARS from myself, Dr. Julie Gerberding of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

"This is the first time in the history of the World Health Organization that travel restrictions have been advised for specific geographical areas because of an outbreak of an infectious disease."

- W. H. O. Press Release, April 2, 2003

April 2, 2003  Atlanta, Georgia - Yesterday, the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States were listing the total world cases for the mysterious SARS pneumonia at 1632 cases and 59 deaths; the United States was at 69 cases. A day later, the current world total has jumped to 2,223 - including 85 cases now in the United States - and 80 deaths.

"The global epidemic continues to expand.  We recognize this is an epidemic that is evolving."

- 3/29/03 Julie Gerberding, M. D., Director,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia

March 30, 2003 Toronto, Ontario, Canada - The severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS, attacks the tiny alveoli lung sacs that get oxygen from the blood in normal healthy people. When alveoli are destroyed and eaten up, as SARS seems to do, people cannot get oxygen to breath and suffer acidosis, too much carbon dioxide in their blood. Until now, medical authorities have hoped this new and still unidentified disease was not contagious through the air.

But in less than a week, Toronto health officials have closed a second hospital because the SARS pneumonia continues to spread despite quarantines, fueling growing concerns that in fact the new pathogen can spread through the air. Toronto's York Central Hospital has been closed to new patients and hundreds of its employees have been asked to quarantine themselves at home for the next ten days in an effort to contain the ongoing outbreak of SARS. Toronto's Scarborough Grace Hospital was also closed to new patients on March 26, and employees were asked to quarantine themselves at home. So far, SARS has infected 37 people in Canada and killed three.