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Responding to SARS

By Jeffrey M. Tanenbaum and Marjorie Fochtman
August 27, 2003

But for the war in Iraq, the outbreak of SARS would undoubtedly have been the lead news story for the first half of 2003. Thousands of people have been infected to date, and there have been a number of fatalities from this new illness. It is apparently highly contagious (under at least some circumstances) and potentially deadly. As of press time, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) had issued a travel health alert for visitors to and from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Singapore, and President Bush had signed an executive order adding SARS to a list of seven other communicable diseases for which a person can be quarantined by public health authorities. The great seriousness of the other diseases on the list (plague, diphtheria, cholera, infectious tuberculosis, smallpox, yellow fever, and hemorrhagic fever [eg, Ebola virus]) gives a sense of the level of concern with which SARS is viewed by at least some in the medical community and government. SARS has reached the United States, although as of the date of publication, it is uncertain how fast, serious, and widespread the SARS outbreak will be in this country.

SARS poses particular concerns for employers for several reasons beyond the obvious need to protect employees who may be at risk and the need to address employee concerns: it is possible that SARS, or at least some strains of it, may be both easily transmittable in the workplace and very serious; medical experts are still searching for a test to detect its presence, as well as a vaccine; the incubation period after exposure but before symptoms appear is believed to be at least 10 days; and early symptoms can mimic less severe respiratory problems.

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