For many of us last year’s SARS epidemic was an extraordinary period in our lives. Since that time we have learned a fair amount about the disease. We know it is caused by the SARS corona virus [1], is probably spread by respiratory droplets and the airborne route, causes a predominantly respiratory illness with little other organ failure [2] and has an overall mortality of 7-17% (http://www.who.int/csr/sars/country/table2004_04_21/en/). Not surprisingly the mortality amongst those who required ICU admission was higher (27-52%) [3,4,5]. It is only moderately infectious overall but there are appear to be superspreading events or patients which can result in infection of large numbers of people [6,7].
Charles David Gomersall
