SARS facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quick facts for kids Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)
Synonyms	Sudden acute respiratory syndrome

Electron micrograph of SARS coronavirus virion
Pronunciation	/sɑːrz/, /sɑːz/
Symptoms	Fever, persistent dry cough, headache, muscle pains, difficulty breathing
Complications	Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) with other comorbidities that eventually leads to death
Duration	2002–2004
Causes	Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-1)
Prevention	N95 or FFP2 respirators, ventilation, UVGI, avoiding travel to affected areas
Prognosis	9.5% chance of death (all countries)
Frequency	8,096 cases total
Deaths	783 known

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is a serious lung illness caused by a virus called SARS-CoV-1. This virus was the first type of SARS-related coronavirus ever found. The first known cases of SARS happened in November 2002. This led to a big outbreak of the disease between 2002 and 2004.

Scientists later found that the SARS virus likely came from horseshoe bats living in caves in China. It then spread to other animals, like Asian palm civets, before reaching humans.

SARS was not a very common disease overall. By June 2003, there were about 8,469 cases. About 11% of the people who got sick died. Since 2004, no new cases of SARS-CoV-1 have been reported anywhere in the world.

In December 2019, a new type of SARS virus was found. It was named SARS-CoV-2. This new virus causes the illness known as COVID-19, which led to a worldwide pandemic.

What are the Signs and Symptoms of SARS?
How Does SARS Spread?
How is SARS Diagnosed?
How Can We Prevent SARS?
How is SARS Treated?
- Vaccine Development
What Happens After SARS?
How Did SARS Spread Around the World?
SARS and Society
See also

What are the Signs and Symptoms of SARS?

SARS often starts with symptoms similar to the flu. These can include a fever, muscle pain, feeling very tired, a cough, and a sore throat. The one symptom that almost all SARS patients had was a fever above 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

SARS can also make it hard to breathe and can lead to pneumonia. Pneumonia is a lung infection that can be caused by the virus itself or by bacteria.

The time it takes for symptoms to show up after someone gets infected is usually 4 to 6 days. Sometimes, it can be as short as 1 day or as long as 14 days.

How Does SARS Spread?

The main way SARS-CoV-1 spread was through contact with respiratory droplets. These are tiny drops that come out of a sick person's mouth or nose when they cough or sneeze. If these droplets land on your mucous membranes (like your eyes, nose, or mouth), you can get infected.

The virus could also spread through fomites. These are objects like doorknobs or tables that have the virus on them. If you touch a contaminated surface and then touch your face, you could get sick. It's also likely that the virus could spread through tiny particles called aerosols when people breathe or talk.

Even though diarrhea was common in people with SARS, spreading the virus through poop (the fecal–oral route) did not seem to be a common way it spread.

How is SARS Diagnosed?

A chest X-ray showing cloudy areas in both lungs, which can mean pneumonia, in a patient with SARS.

Doctors might suspect SARS if a patient has:

Any of the symptoms, especially a fever of 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher.
And has either:
- Been in contact with someone diagnosed with SARS in the last 10 days.
- Traveled to areas where SARS was recently spreading.

For a case to be considered "probable," a chest X-ray needs to show signs of atypical pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome. These are serious lung conditions.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also created a category called "laboratory confirmed SARS." This means a patient had symptoms and tested positive for SARS using special tests like ELISA or PCR, even if their chest X-ray didn't clearly show the infection.

On a chest X-ray, SARS-CoV-1 often looks like cloudy or patchy areas in the lungs.

How Can We Prevent SARS?

Even though a vaccine for SARS was developed, it wasn't widely used because the outbreak ended. Keeping sick people separate and vaccination are the best ways to stop SARS from spreading.

Other important ways to prevent SARS include:

Washing hands often with soap and water, or using alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
Cleaning surfaces to remove viruses.
Avoiding contact with body fluids from sick people.
Washing personal items (like dishes or bedding) of someone with SARS in hot, soapy water.
Avoiding travel to areas where SARS is spreading.
Wearing masks and gloves.
Keeping people with symptoms home from school or work.
Staying at least 6 feet away from others if possible.

Many public health steps were taken to control the disease. These included finding sick people early, isolating them, and using personal protective equipment (PPE) like masks and gowns. For medical workers, wearing N-95 masks could reduce the chance of getting sick by up to 80%. Airports also started checking travelers for symptoms.

The SARS virus was most contagious when people were very sick, usually in the second week of their illness. This meant that quarantine (keeping people separate) worked very well. People who were isolated early rarely spread the disease to others.

How is SARS Treated?

An award given to the staff of the Hôpital Français de Hanoï for their brave work during the SARS crisis.

Since SARS is caused by a virus, antibiotics do not work against it. However, antibiotics might be used if a patient also gets a bacterial infection.

Treatment for SARS mainly focuses on supporting the patient. This includes giving them medicine for fever, extra oxygen, and sometimes using a breathing machine if needed. Some antiviral medicines were tried, but none have been proven to cure SARS.

People with SARS-CoV-1 need to be isolated, ideally in special negative-pressure rooms. These rooms help prevent the virus from spreading outside. Medical staff also need to take full safety steps when caring for these patients. Sometimes, just opening windows and doors can help reduce virus particles in the air.

Some of the serious harm from SARS might be caused by the body's own immune system overreacting. This is called a cytokine storm.

Vaccine Development

Vaccines help your body create special defenses called antibodies. These antibodies can fight off viruses and reduce side effects like arm pain or fever. After the SARS outbreak, scientists worked hard to find new vaccines and medicines. An early human trial for a vaccine was planned in 2004. However, because the outbreak ended, funding for a field-ready SARS vaccine stopped.

What Happens After SARS?

Some people who recovered from SARS had long-term health problems. These included pulmonary fibrosis (scarring in the lungs), osteoporosis (weak bones), and femoral necrosis (bone tissue death). These issues sometimes made it hard for people to work or even take care of themselves.

Also, because of the strict isolation rules, some people who recovered from SARS developed mental health issues. These included post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder.

How Did SARS Spread Around the World?

SARS was a relatively rare disease. By the end of the epidemic in June 2003, there were 8,422 cases. About 11% of those who got sick died.

The chance of dying from SARS varied a lot with age. Patients under 24 years old had a very low chance of dying (less than 1%). However, those 65 and older had a much higher chance (over 55%). Like MERS and COVID-19, SARS caused more deaths in males than in females.

Map showing probable cases of SARS around the world in 2003.

Probable cases of SARS by country or region,
1 November 2002 – 31 July 2003
Country or region	Cases	Deaths	Fatality (%)
China	5,327	349	6.6
Hong Kong	1,755	299	17.0
Taiwan	346	81	23.4
Canada	251	43	17.1
Singapore	238	33	13.9
Vietnam	63	5	7.9
United States	27	0	0
Philippines	14	2	14.3
Thailand	9	2	22.2
Germany	9	0	0
Mongolia	9	0	0
France	7	1	14.3
Australia	6	0	0
Malaysia	5	2	40.0
Sweden	5	0	0
United Kingdom	4	0	0
Italy	4	0	0
Brazil	3	0	0
India	3	0	0
South Korea	3	0	0
Indonesia	2	0	0
South Africa	1	1	100.0
Colombia	1	0	0
Kuwait	1	0	0
Ireland	1	0	0
Macao	1	0	0
New Zealand	1	0	0
Romania	1	0	0
Russia	1	0	0
Spain	1	0	0
Switzerland	1	0	0
Total excluding China	2,769	454	16.4
Total (29 territories)	8,096	782	9.6

The Start of the Outbreak in China

The SARS outbreak began in the Guangdong province of China in November 2002. The first known patient was a farmer who got sick on November 16, 2002. He was treated in a hospital but died soon after.

At first, Chinese government officials did not tell the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak until February 2003. This lack of openness caused delays in controlling the disease. China later apologized for this slow response.

In 2003, a 72-year-old person with SARS infected many people on an airplane, which led to 5 deaths. Scientists later traced the virus back to a group of horseshoe bats in Yunnan, China.

The international medical community first heard about the outbreak on November 27, 2002. A system called the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN) picked up reports of a "flu outbreak" in China.

How SARS Spread to Other Countries

The SARS epidemic became widely known in February 2003. An American businessman traveling from China became sick on a flight to Singapore. The plane stopped in Hanoi, Vietnam, where he later died. Several medical staff who treated him also got sick. An Italian doctor named Carlo Urbani recognized how serious this new disease was. He told the WHO and the Vietnamese government about it, but he later died from SARS himself.

The severe symptoms and the spread among hospital staff worried global health experts. On March 12, 2003, the WHO issued a worldwide alert. SARS then spread to many places, including Toronto, Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Stopping the Spread of SARS

The World Health Organization announced that Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome was contained on July 5, 2003. This was possible because of successful public health actions. After this, only four more SARS cases were reported in China between December 2003 and January 2004.

Even though the SARS-CoV-1 virus might still exist in its original animal hosts, it is considered gone in humans. No human cases have been found since those few small outbreaks in 2004.

Lab Accidents

After the main outbreak was contained, there were a few cases where people got infected in laboratories. These accidents happened when researchers were studying the live SARS virus. For example, two researchers in China got sick in April 2004 and spread the virus to a few other people.

Studying live SARS viruses needs very high safety measures, usually in a biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) lab.

SARS and Society

The fear of catching the virus from eating wild animals led to bans and reduced business in meat markets in southern China and Hong Kong. The WHO officially declared the end of the pandemic on March 24, 2004.