by Vicki Meyer

Created on: February 10, 2009

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a title that to this day rings in the ears of so many people. For a period of approximately six months, SARS devastated health care systems around the globe, infecting nearly 8000 people and killing 1707.

The World Health Organization failed to act and in turn, the world was caught by surprise when an outbreak occurred. Medical professionals struggled to contain the virus and treat the ill from a disease for which there were no treatment or vaccine options available. No where in the world was there a strong enough system in place to treat and quarantine so many ill people. In hospitals, medicals professionals, patients, visitors and volunteers who came into contact with those infected were falling ill faster than beds could be found. The patients were not responding to any treatment methods, and there were not enough anti-viral drugs for all the patients. Meanwhile, researchers all over the globe were struggling to isolate the virus and hopefully develop a vaccine.

More needed to be done during this epidemic. New cases were appearing faster than the WHO was issuing warnings. Travel advisories were not issued by the WHO until nearly 2 months into Canada's outbreak, about 5 months after the first official case appeared in China. The WHO was aware of a strange disease spreading throughout China in early December; however, they took no action to prevent its spread. This slow reaction caused the deaths of more than 1000 people worldwide. The WHO should have issued warnings and taken action in China to both find ways to treat the ill, prevent the spread and warn the world. This early reaction would have possibly better prepared the world for the outbreak to come, and minimize its affects.

SARS taught the world that more needs to be done to prepare for such an event in the future, and to prevent it from ever again resulting in such disastrous outcomes. Since 2003, countries all over the world, in partnership with the WHO, have been working to prepare for a potential influenza virus outbreak. Canada is the only country (as of 2005) to have in stock enough antivirus drugs for all its citizens, have enough resources on hand to develop an emergency vaccine and to offer wide scale vaccinations annually for all its people. The problem, however, is that poorer countries cannot afford to invest in such extensive preparations. Countries need to work together to ensure that worldwide measures are taken to prevent disaster in the future.

SARS

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