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AS IF the news isn’t depressing enough already, now we have SARS. We don’t know what exactly it is but we know it can kill. We don’t know how we can get it so we keep our kids at home and avoid crowded places and planes. Except for the bombs, I feel a bit like an Iraqi under siege. 

For those of us who have worked in public health, the SARS epidemic also makes us nostalgic. It reminds us of another epidemic that is still raging around the world, HIV/AIDS. Despite the many differences between the viruses and the way they are spread, many of the characteristics of the epidemic itself, and the reactions to it, are similar to HIV/AIDS.