Severe Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (SARS) is caused by a hitherto unknown and distinct variant of the coronavirus family, many members of which are responsible for the "common cold." The SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) is thought to have originated in the Guangdong Province of China, and been carried to other parts of the region by a local physician who had treated patients for "bird flu" and who subsequently traveled to Hong Kong in late February 2003. The initial reported cases of SARS included several international travelers staying at the same Hong Kong hotel as this physician.

In the weeks that followed, SARS spread rapidly to other countries in Asia, the Americas, and Europe, presumably by close contacts between air travelers, hospital workers, and relatives of infected individuals. Between November 2002 and July 2003, the WHO received reports of 8,098 cases of SARS, with 774 deaths. The majority of cases occurred in China and other parts of Southeast Asia. Only 8 laboratory-confirmed cases were identified in the United States. In April 2004, several new cases of SARS were identified in east-central China, prompting intense and ongoing surveillance by public health officials for further spread of this pathogen. ^1,2

The following is a summary of SARS, based upon the latest information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

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¹See http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/sars/cases.htm for the latest United States SARS statistics.
²See http://www.who.int/csr/sarscountry/en/for SARS statistics compiled by WHO.