ABSTRACT

On 12 March 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a worldwide alert regarding cases of a rapidly progressive respiratory illness in Guangdong Province (China), Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore and Canada. WHO coined the term ‘severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)’ for this highly infectious disease. The causative agent was identified to be a novel coronavirus which has been named the SARS-CoV1,2. As of 26 September 2003, there were 8098 cases of SARS in 29 countries with 774 deaths (WHO website).