If you follow the news at all, you probably remember reports of occurrences of SARS, a respiratory illness caused by a particular strain of the corona virus. Hong Kong, China and other Asian destinations had reports of outbreaks and deaths. SARS stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and can be first publicly traced back to China in November of 2002.

Travel advisories to Hong Kong were issued around March 2003 by the World Health Organization because it was not known what the cause was at the time. By the end of July, almost 10,000 people were affected with almost 1,000 deaths, quite significant for industrialized areas.

The scary part about SARS is that is can easily travel around the world. People can unknowingly travel via airplane anywhere in the world, thinking they have a simple cold at first. Can you imagine, coughing or sneezing in an enclosed space with re-circulated air? It can be quite easy to spread SARS to an entire airplane.

The virus is transmitted through the bodily fluids, usually through sneezing and coughing. The droplets emitted can land on telephones, door knobs and more and the virus can live for several days on these surfaces. Touching these infected areas and then rubbing your eyes or putting your fingers in your mouth or any other mucosal area can easily capture this virus.

Between two to seven days is the normal incubation period of SARS. However, some people may not exhibit symptoms until as long as two weeks later. A fever higher than 100

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