One piece of good news about SARS: Children seem to have milder symptoms and be less infectious than adults. Out of 333 people killed by the disease, not one of them has been a child. A study of 10 Hong Kong children with SARS showed that kids under the age of eight had far milder symptoms than teenagers and adults. “SARS in young children does not seem as frightening as in older adults,” says pediatrician Tai Fai Fok.
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The New York City Health Department detained a foreign tourist against his will for a week after he checked into a hospital with SARS symptoms but refused to be quarantined for the mandatory 10 days. He had stopped in Hong Kong on his way to New York. After his fever went down, he wanted to leave the hospital so he could go sightseeing and to a basketball game, but he wasn’t allowed to leave.
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Two British microbiologists say SARS may have come from space, riding on a comet. Microbiologist Dr. Milton Wainwright says, “Several aspects of the SARS outbreak appear to fit this general scheme.”
Debris from a comet, including the SARS virus, could have arrived in the stratosphere. It would have reached the Himalayas, whose high peaks are on the edge of the stratosphere, where particles would then descend to Earth. Then the Earth’s rotation and prevailing winds could have blown the virus into China. A recent study of the atmosphere 25 miles into space shows that about a ton of biological material arrives from space every day.
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SARS is now attacking the intestines as well as the respiratory system. Hong Kong virologist Malik Peiris says this indicates the virus has mutated and will make it harder to develop a vaccine or a medicine for the disease. Tom Buckley, of the intensive care unit at Hong Kong’s Princess Margaret Hospital, says organ failure is now becoming more common. “Initially patients were presenting with just respiratory failure,” he says. “Now we’re seeing renal failure and other organ failure.” And despite mandatory quarantines, SARS carriers are slipping out into the public and infecting others.
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