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China, Hong Kong?and even Toronto?are infested with cases of SARS and it’s spreading rapidly. We know it originated in Asia, so why is Japan free from the disease? Experts says it’s all due to handwashing. Japanese children are nagged into washing their hands and gargling after meals from the time they enter elementary school, and the habit persists into adulthood. Infectious disease expert Hiroko Sagara says, “I think a lot of people still do wash their hands.”
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Now that China has finally admitted the SARS epidemic started in the southern province of Guangdong and is letting investigators into the country, new discoveries are being made about the virus. One of these is that the first people who came down with the disease ate or handled wild game, such as chickens, ducks and owls. “We will explore further if the disease was passed to human beings from wild animals. You know, Guangdong people like eating exotic animals and I don’t find it a healthy practice,” says Bi Shengli, of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The earliest cases of SARS have been traced to either chefs or bird sellers.
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An American Airlines flight from Tokyo was quarantined on the landing strip at San Jose’s airport after five people, including two crew members, complained of SARS-like symptoms. Ambulances lined up near the plane as the 125 passengers and 14 crew members waited on board after the nine-hour flight. Joy Alexiou, of the Santa Clara County Public Health Department, says of the people on board who reported to the crew during the flight that they “think they may have SARS, we’re pretty sure four of the five transferred from Hong Kong to Tokyo.” Three of the people were taken to the hospital, and the other two were released.
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On this week’s Dreamland, science reporter Linda Howe gives us a special report on SARS. It’s spreading fast, and health officials now admit they don’t have any effective medicine to treat it. An entire apartment building has been infected in Hong Kong, raising fears that SARS can be spread through the air, rather than by droplets from sneezing or coughing, the way most viruses spread. Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the CDC, says, “The global epidemic continues to expand. We recognize this as an epidemic that is evolving.”
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