Respiratory virus panels for global surveillance of emerging infectious diseases

摘要

The success in dealing with SARS can partially be attributed to detection of a unique disease within an established healthcare system, international efforts to contain the spread of disease, and rapid identification of a newly emerging pathogen using advanced molecular techniques. Despite this success, the outbreak exposed several weaknesses in the established surveillance networks and demonstrated the potential social and economic toll infectious disease outbreaks can exert, even in developed countries. SARS was a slow-spreading virus with low communicability and a long incubation period, yet it spread to 29 countries in five continents over a period of a few weeks, infecting over 8000 patients with 774 fatalities (Poon et al., 2004)