SARS: the facts you need to know

What is SARS?

SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, is a new form of respiratory illness that originated in the Far East. It appears to be less infectious than influenza and the incubation period is short, around 2–7 days. The Health Protection Agency's site will give you information (this has now replaced the Public Health Laboratory's pages).

How contagious is SARS?

Based on currently available evidence, prolonged close contact with an infected person poses the highest risk of spread. To date, the majority of cases have occurred in hospital workers who have cared for SARS patients and the close family members of these patients.

What are the symptoms?

Sudden high fever (more than 38°C, or 100.4°F), dry cough, sore throat, or breathing difficulties.

What action is needed if the symptoms appear on return from one of the affected areas?

If you have recently returned from an area where there is ongoing transmission of infection and suffer from any of the following symptoms – sudden onset of high fever as described above, together with respiratory symptoms such as a cough, sore throat or difficulty in breathing, within 10 days of return, please phone your college nurse (where appropriate), college doctor, or NHS Direct on 0845 4647 as soon as possible. To minimize the risk to others, please do not just turn up at the surgery without warning.

Travel advice

At the time of writing there are not currently any World Health Organization recommendations for postponing or cancelling journeys. You should, however, take reasonable care for the time being in areas that have a recent history of cases, and if you are intending to travel, please check the list of currently affected areas on the World Health Organization's website, which is updated as often as there is new information, to make sure there are no new cases. You should also look at the Department of Health's pages (see the "latest health updates") and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's pages for up-to-date travel advice.

Care should be taken to ensure that proper insurance is in place; staff should read the University's travel policy.

How worried should one be?

To quote from the former Public Health Laboratory Service's FAQ page:

"It is important to keep the risk in proportion. Even though there have been many people that we have looked at because they have come back from Hong Kong and have had a temperature and a cough, in fact there have only a handful of probable cases – and when you compare this to the amount of people coming back from Hong Kong each day the risk is very low. However, SARS can be a very serious condition."

---