SEVERE Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is all over the news. The atypical pneumonia continues to spread through the region. It has taken the life of Dr Carlo Urbani, the WHO specialist who identified the outbreak. Experts have identified the cause to be a mutant strain of the virus that causes the common cold, the coronavirus. It is called the coronavirus because of its spiky crown of protein globules.
When experts first heard of a respiratory disease spreading from person to person in Asia, there was fear that this could be the Big One that they had been dreading – a re-run of the deadly 1918-1919 influenza epidemic that killed more than 20 million people around the world. Fortunately, this has proven unfounded.
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