SARS: How a global epidemic was stopped

Peck, Kyong Ran

This book is not just a scientific publication, but also a kind of history book. This book is largely divided into two parts. The first part, the first three chapters, is designated for the history of SARS: it describes the global occurrence of SARS chronologically in detail and the global response. The spread of SARS and the response are reviewed country by country. This book contains unreported materials on how the disease started to spread in China, how it reached Hong Kong and what precisely happened at the Metropole Hotel. Readers can get information how SARS was transmitted from a patient to others including health care workers, from a hospital to hospitals and communities, and from one country to other countries on a timeline. The book also details how people reacted to SARS, how international researchers and officials worked collaboratively, how helpful Internet was in real-time sharing of information, and how the outbreak of SARS was controlled eventually. The distinguishing outbreaks, such as the outbreak at the Metropole Hotel or Amoy Gardens and through Flight CA112, are described separately. Readers can identify the successes and failures of the fight against SARS while reading the first part, and could be better prepared for future infectious diseases.