IT LOOKS increasingly as if the virus that causes SARS is not going away. Isolating patients and quarantining their contacts might slow the spread, as it has in Hong Kong and Toronto, but we’ve still to see these measures stop new infections. Most worryingly, as the virus invades poor areas of China and poor countries, containment will become impossible. Sooner or later, SARS is coming to a person near you.
There is good news, though. The virus should be vulnerable to a vaccine (see page 4). We could even develop one in record time. But if past history is anything…
