SARS affects the health of air travel
What is SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and how is it spread?
- Researchers believe the disease could be caused by the coronavirus (linked to the common cold) and/or the paramyxovirus (linked to measles).
- The World Health Organization states that a cure may take some time. However, simple measures like hand washing may help prevent SARS from spreading more rapidly.
- SARS can be transmitted through coughs and sneezes, as with the common cold. The disease may also be passed on by coming into contact with items that someone infected with SARS has touched within a few hours.
- Symptoms include fever, difficulty breathing, a lasting cough, body aches, and other flu-like symptoms. The incubation period for SARS appears to be between 3 to 10 days.
- Most people infected with SARS do recover. It has been estimated that the fatality rate from SARS is somewhere between 2 and 6 percent.
- Air travel may or may not be one of the places that transmission of SARS occurs. The disease could potentially be spread to passengers sitting in a nearby row.
- The earliest cases of SARS were found in Singapore; Hanoi; Hong Kong; Taiwan; Beijing; Shanghai; Toronto; and the Chinese province of Guangdong. More cases have now been reported in more than a dozen countries around the world, and counting.
- More information about the particulars of SARS is available from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Elsewhere on the Web.
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