What is your reaction about this article? (SARS)?

SARS
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, had infected fewer than 1,500 people (with 53 deaths) as of March 28, 2003, according World Health Organization statistics. Health investigators first looked at a family of viruses called paramyxovirus as a possible cause of the infection, but more recent reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have focused on a group called the coronaviruses, which are related to the common cold. There is still very little information as to definite causes and treatments of the illness.
Additional steps needed to confirm this hypothesis include further culturing of the virus from appropriate specimens, sequencing the viral genome, and examining specimens from patients at different stages of their illness.
鈥淭his collaboration among scientists led by the World Health Organization (WHO) is unprecedented,鈥?said CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding. 鈥淲e certainly have more work to do, but we think we are on the right track. And our systems to identify cases and investigate them are working too, thanks to all the frontline clinicians and state and local health departments around the country.鈥?br> Do we need to worry? That depends on whether the illness continues to jump borders before we can find a way to stop it. At this point, the vast majority of cases have occurred in Guangdong in the Peoples' Republic of China; Hanoi, Vietnam; Hong Kong or Singapore. Officials are on the lookout for people with a rapid onset of high fever (>100.4 degrees) and clinical findings of respiratory illness including cough, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing; or with a diagnosis of pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome. Even though there have been only 39 reported cases of SARS in the United States (with no deaths), it鈥檚 still best to see your physician as soon as possible if you have any of these symptoms.
You should also see a doctor if you have recently traveled out of the country to areas with suspected or documented community transmission of SARS, or have recently had close contact with anyone who has recently traveled to a SARS area and acquired a respiratory illness.
This article includes information from:
US Centers for Disease Control and prevention (CDC)
Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
World Health Organization (WHO)
Article Created: 2003-03-28
Article Updated: 2003-03-28

When it happened in 2003, my family was in Malaysia, one of the badly-affected zone and I was in Australia. I was under the impression that it was one of the safest zone. Naturally I was very worried about what's happening back home. It's 2008 now, the disease is under control, I think most of us are treating it as history.