Exclusive: Specter of SARS weighs on CDC as MERS virus lands in U.S.

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Exclusive: Specter of SARS weighs on CDC as MERS virus lands in U.S.

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - When the SARS outbreak arrived in Toronto on Feb. 23, 2003, carried by a woman traveling from Hong Kong, the disease quickly spread to hospital workers and patients in area hospitals, ultimately infecting 257 individuals and killing 33 people. It's a memory that hangs fresh in the mind of Dr Michael Bell, deputy director of the division of healthcare quality promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Atlanta-based federal agency last week sent a team of infectious disease experts to Community Hospital in Munster, Indiana, to attend to the first confirmed U.S. case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or MERS. "In a worst-case scenario, this could spread rapidly." MERS is caused by a coronavirus, a family of viruses that includes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS, which emerged in China in 2002-2003 and killed some 800 people.

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