SARS Epidemic: SARS Outbreaks in Inner-land of China

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), also known in China as Infectious Atypical Pneumonia (IAP), is the 21st century’s first infectious disease to severely threaten the public health of the human population (WHO, 2003a). A respiratory transmitted disease caused by a virus, SARS is highly infectious and is rapidly transmitted, inflicting severe complications and a high case fatality rate. The first round of the SARS pandemic led to global panic and billions of dollars economic losses, for due to lack of effective SARS drugs, governments throughout the world had to take rigid steps toward prevention and treatment of the disease. The SARS epidemic began with the first reported case in Guangzhou, China (Wang et al., 2004), on 16 November 2002. Eight months later, the disease had spread to 26 countries in Asia, America, and Europe, resulting in a reported 8,096 cases and 774 deaths (WHO, 2004). In this global epidemic, China, with 7,429 cases and 685 deaths, accounted for 91.8% of the world’s reported cases and 88.5% of the deaths (5,327 SARS cases and 349 deaths were reported in 24 provinces in the inner-land of China – mostly in Beijing and Guangzhou, which, with a combined 4,033 cases, accounted for 75.7% of the total number in the inner-land of China; Hong Kong had 1,755 cases, 299 deaths; Taiwan: 346 cases, 37 deaths; Macao: 1 case, 0 deaths) (He et al., 2003; Peng et al., 2003; Yang et al., 2003; Leadership Group of SARS Prevention and Control in Beijing, 2003; Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2003).