ABSTRACT
At the time that this book was going to press, a multicountry outbreak of a new viral respiratory illness was occurring. The term severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was chosen by the World Health Organization (WHO) to describe this highly contagious viral pneumonia. The resemblance to the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is not in name alone. SARS frequently progresses to acute respiratory failure or acute lung injury (ALI), ARDS, and death. In this chapter, the epidemiology, clinical features, diagnosis, and treatment for SARS will be discussed. Because new information on SARS is being discovered and disseminated on an almost daily basis, the reviewer is referred to the World Health Organization (https://www.who.int/) and Centers for Disease Control (https://www.cdc.gov/) websites to access the most current information.
