Reported and Edited by Linda Moulton Howe
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April 14, 2003 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada - Today, the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are reporting that the number of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome cases, known as SARS pneumonia, have risen around the world to 3169 and 144 deaths. This is an epidemic. Many doctors are wondering if it will become a global pandemic that can infect hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of people over the next several months.
"I think we might find that SARS causes quite a massive immune response on the part of the human host that the virus is able to trick the sick human host and have it over react. ...Maybe the way this SARS disease hurts the host is almost like the host turning on itself (in an auto-immune way)."
- Donald Low, M. D., Chief of Microbiology, Mt. Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada
April 4, 2003 Evening Update:
STATEMENT BY TOMMY G. THOMPSON
Secretary of Health and Human Services
Regarding Executive Order on Quarantinable Diseases
"The President today signed an executive order adding SARS to the list of quarantinable communicable diseases under the Public Health Service Act. The president signed the order after he received a detailed briefing on SARS from myself, Dr. Julie Gerberding of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"This is the first time in the history of the World Health Organization that travel restrictions have been advised for specific geographical areas because of an outbreak of an infectious disease."
- W. H. O. Press Release, April 2, 2003
April 2, 2003 Atlanta, Georgia - Yesterday, the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States were listing the total world cases for the mysterious SARS pneumonia at 1632 cases and 59 deaths; the United States was at 69 cases. A day later, the current world total has jumped to 2,223 - including 85 cases now in the United States - and 80 deaths.