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Our first hint about SARS (Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome) came from scattered reports of atypical pneumonia occurring in China. In the months that followed nearly 8,000 people contracted the disease, and 774 of them died.
In a world where thousands die each day of a myriad of diseases, including pneumonia's, it can be difficult to know when someone has contracted something out of the ordinary.
In many countries, lab tests and x-rays are a luxury. Many people are simply treated based on clinical symptoms without ever confirming what is the causative agent in their illness.
Worse, in many countries, some people aren't treated at all.
A sad commentary in this first decade of the 21st century, but even more distressing with the specter of new emerging infectious diseases, like SARS and bird flu on the horizon.
Early detection is our only hope of containing, and hopefully stopping, an outbreak.
City wary about unidentified pneumonia
Shanghai is stepping up efforts to prevent infectious respiratory diseases as viruses that lead to human bird flu, flu and severe acute respiratory syndrome could become active.
The Shanghai Health Bureau issued a warning yesterday and ordered local hospitals to report any unidentified pneumonia case through an online network to health bureaus at the district or county levels promptly from tomorrow to April 15.
District and county-level health bureaus are responsible for organizing medical experts within 24 hours to check if the cases involve human bird flu or SARS, and cases that are suspected to be bird flu should be reported to the city's health bureau immediately.
Local medical institutes are required to isolate patients who are diagnosed with infectious respiratory diseases or have similar symptoms to prevent the viruses from spreading.
The city's 43 monitoring sites that are designated by health authorities should report the number of flu cases to district and county-level disease control and prevention centers on a daily basis, the health bureau said.
The Shanghai Health Bureau reminds residents to be vigilant about respiratory diseases and receive treatment at medical institutes as soon as possible.
(Shanghai Daily November 15, 2007)
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