SARS the true story.

Horizon tells the story of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic from the point of view of the World Health Organization (WHO) which had the task of containing this dangerous viral illness. The WHO was first alerted by Dr. Carlo Obani of Hanoi who was alarmed at the symptoms of one of his hospital patients. Dr. Obani was unaware that the virus was already spreading through the hospital and in a short time, 60 patients died from it. Dr. Obani also became fatally infected. There had been rumours of a fatal disease spreading through Guandong, China, but China issued no warning and took no action. By the time the urgency of the situation was recognised, the virus had already spread across the border to Hong Kong and from Hong Kong its route was open to the rest of the world. At WHO Headquarters, Geneva, the Global Awareness and Response Unit took the unusual step of implementing its war plan. As well as Hong King and Vietnam, Singapore and Canada were already experiencing cases of SARS. This was the name give to it by the WHO. They announced a worldwide alert and sent out guidelines to hospitals. Even as they were setting up these precautions, new cases were identified in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Germany. It was an urgent matter to identify the virus so the world's top microbiologists were asked to co-operate with each other in the search. The index case - the first person to contract the illness - was identified, Dr. Jianlun Liu, a Chinese doctor, who had carried the virus to Hong Kong. Method of tranmission was established and a breakthrough occurred with the isolation of the virus from a patient. It proved to be a corona virus which normally causes nothing worse than the common cold in humans, but this one had changed; probably an animal virus, it was likely that it had jumped species in Guandong, China, where people live at close quarters with their livestock. The human immune system is unprepared for the onslaught of new virus and the results can be lethal. There is no antidote for SARS; patients can be supported but ultimately the strenght of their immune systems resovles the battle one way or another. Four weeks after the start of the outbreak the WHO had identified the virus and its likely origin. But the disease was still spreading and there was doubt as to whether the WHO was in control of the outbreak. As panic mounted, however, the WHO's tactics began to take effect. Countries co-ordinated their resistance; Singapore screened everyone entering and leaving the country; hospitals screened patients, doctors and visitors and in Toronto 10,000 people were asked to go into voluntary quarantine. A medical team in Canada cracked the virus's genetic code and the virus was found to be barely mutating (unlike the HIV virus). If it remains stable there is a chance of developing a vaccine - but not in the near future. China's outbreak proved to be far greater than the country had admitted, but even so, the worst is now know about SARS and its death rate is lower than in severe outbreaks of influenza. The task is now to contain it within China, with the aim of eradicating it. This programme was filmed in Hanoi, Guandong, Hong Kong, Geneva, Ontario and Toronto. Contributors include Dr. Mike Ryan (Global Awareness and Response Unit, WHO), Dr. Klaus Stohr (influenza specialist, WHO), Dr. Sheila Basrur (Medical Office of Health, Toronto), Dr. Mike Leahy (virologist).