Barbara Carroll, NewsMax.com
Friday, April 4, 2003

Health officials have no immediate plans to use the new powers in fighting severe acute respiratory syndrome.

Bush's executive order adding SARS to the list of diseases with involuntary quarantines is the first time a new disease has been added to the list in two decades.

"If spread in the population," the order says, SARS "would have severe public health consequences."

CDC: Very Difficult to Contain

It's too soon to tell whether a deadly new respiratory illness will become a global pandemic, but it would take extreme luck for it to be contained now, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, according the Associated Press today.

"In an executive order signed Friday, Bush added SARS to the list of diseases for which health authorities have authority to involuntarily quarantine Americans.

It's the first time a new disease has been added to the list in two decades.

"If spread in the population," the order says, SARS "would have severe public health consequences."

"This is an outbreak in progress and in evolution," said Dr. James Hughes of the CDC this afternoon. "We've been lucky," he said, in that the cases in the United States seemed less virulent than other cases, such as the seven fatalities in Canada.

What Quarantine Means

Although a formal definition of the new quarantine measures in the U.S. have not been released, the CDC explains that a quarantine separates people who are not ill but suspected of carrying a disease or coming from an infected area. Isolation is when a sick person is put in an area away from healthy people.

The CDC has been sending teams to screen disembarking air travelers, and more stringent screening procedures will most likely be part of the new order. Other countries are quarantining people in their homes, though without full voluntary cooperation of individuals, this method of preventing an outbreak is ineffectual.

World Health Organization update: "As of today and including the new data from China, a cumulative total of 2353 SARS cases and 84 deaths have been reported from 16 countries. This represents an increase of 83 cases and 5 deaths compared with yesterday. The deaths occurred in Canada (1), China (3), and Singapore (1).

New cases were reported in Canada (7), China (30), Hong Kong SAR (27), Taiwan, China (1), Singapore (2), and the United States of America (15)."

As the SARS corona virus is expected to continue its course around the globe, comparisons are already being made to the great influenza pandemic of 1918-19, which killed 20 million or more worldwide. That was in an era when travel was slow and symptoms of a contagious disease had time to appear.

The pneumonia-type disease is believed to have reached South America, which had previously reported no known cases.

The CDC points out that air travel gives the virus a chance to spread because people move faster than the incubation of the disease. Since the symptoms may show anywhere from one to 12 days after infection, a healthy-seeming person may travel without detection.

New collaboration has grown between airlines and the World Health Organization and the CDC. Teams from health organizations are meeting airlines to screen passengers coming from infected countries.

As the list of infected countries grows, travelers will not only be subjected to screening for terrorist activities but also for harboring this potentially deadly disease.

SARS fears are causing cancellations to the Far East and Canada. Expect extra time when flying to or from any of the infected countries.

Test Run for Bioterror

Working out of their new emergency operations center, the CDC says that in the event of a bioterrorism attack, it will be using many of the same procedures that it is using for SARS. Research on anthrax continues at this center. The Army also has the virus for study.

"This is a drill," Dr. Hughes commented. This is a fire drill for an acute respiratory disease and for a pandemic."

As the weather warms up, the CDC and WHO expect the West Nile virus and encephalitis to be on the list of deadly threats to diagnose and contain.

Diagnosis, Cure and Prevention

There is now a diagnostic test to determine the presence of the SARS virus. Though no cure is available, ribiviron which is being used in Hong Kong is the most hopeful drug to combat this progressive disease.

The CDC stresses that the best prevention is avoiding contamination by droplets from sneezing or coughing and thorough hand-washing because the virus can survive on surfaces.

Many people are relying on masks, but they give little or no protection, although an infected person wearing one may cause less contamination simply because it blocks the expulsion of the virus-contaminated fluids.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson received assurances from China's premier that cooperation will continue. Two staff members of the CDC are part of the investigation in the Guangdong Province that may hold the key to unlock this mysterious strain of atypical pneumonia.

Dr. Hughes at the CDC admitted that even with all the scientific measures available to combat this pandemic in the making, "We're not on top of this by any means."

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
Executive Orders
Health Issues
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