Page 9 - Pandemic: How Climate, the Environment, and Superbugs Increase the Risk

This digitally colored
electron microscope
image shows
coronaviruses that
cause infectious
bronchitis. The spikes
surrounding these
viruses give them
their crown-like shape.

end of 2003, SARS had sickened more than eight thousand people and
killed about eight hundred.
SARS is highly contagious. During the 2003 epidemic, it killed
nearly one out of every ten people it infected. Yet it didn’t turn into
a global pandemic. Why not? First, scientists identified the virus
quickly once it became public. Well-equipped, well-staffed hospitals
treated most of the patients. China closed schools and put thousands
of people in quarantine (isolation from other people) to stop the
spread of SARS. Experts quickly traced the contacts of each sick
person to discover whom they might have infected and put those
people in quarantine as well.

Bugs on a Plane 29