The emergence of a new disease has set off major alarms in the global village. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is a deadly pneumonia-like virus that has killed at least 85 people in Asia and Canada and sickened at least 2,400 worldwide.
Mainland China accounts for more than half the fatalities, but this doesn’t mean that the disease won’t spread to people in the United States. In fact, it already has. Germs can easily go continent-hopping these days along with business travelers, tourists and even adoptive parents.
Symptoms of the disease include high fever, aches, dry cough and breathing difficulty. The disease has a mortality rate of about 4 percent, less than the flu, but most people who are infected require weeks of hospitalization with strong anti-viral drugs. In the United States, most of the suspected cases are in California and New York, although officials said they are not concentrated in one area-115 suspected cases in 29 states have been reported although no one in the United States has died from SARS.
U.S. officials are quickly putting measures in place to deal with the highly contagious illness. Friday, President Bush issued an executive order adding it to the list of diseases for which health authorities can hold Americans against their will. The order allows the Health and Human Services secretary to decide when such a quarantine is needed. SARS joins a list that includes cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever and several viral hemorrhagic fevers.
It’s the first time in two decades that a new disease has been added to the list, and rightly so. The measure is in the best interest of the American people. Bush issued the order after a Chinese traveler coming into the Unites States refused medical attention after showing symptoms of the illness. The traveler later collapsed while traveling by train. Officials who tried to detain the woman were powerless to stop her, but in adding SARS to the list, they can now hold those who are suspected of being infected.
Allowing government officials this authority is not a violation of civil rights since it will be used only when someone poses a threat to public health. Besides, the suspected infected person will be forced to see a doctor, not go to jail. And even though it is not a terrorism-related illness, it gives authorities an opportunity to test efforts at containing a biological weapons attack.
Since we are in Starkville, Mississippi, most of us are safe from the disease, but as the weeks pass, there may be more infections in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can’t give much advice in prevention since the disease is so new, but there is a possibility that it is airborne and can remain on surfaces for a few hours. So, if you don’t already, now is the time to consistently wash your hands and be aware of coughing or sneezing people around you.
Taylor Davis is a freshman English major.