Public Affairs
Baylor College
of Medicine
One Baylor Plaza,
Room 176B
Houston, TX 77030
Telephone:
  (713) 798-4712
Fax:
  (713) 798-3692
email: pa@bcm.tmc.edu

Photos Available Upon Request

Comments, Suggestions?

Taking on the mystery disease

by Ruth SoRelle, MPH

Within a week of the first warning to travelers from the World Health Organization about a dangerous new disease called severe acute respiratory syndrome that was proving deadly in some cases and the cause of severe illness in others, scientists here and abroad are closing in on the cause – a previously unknown member of either the coronavirus or the paramyxovirus families.

While much work remains, the finding demonstrates how far science has progressed as well as the importance of disease surveillance by public health authorities the world around.

Without the surveillance organizations that are quick to share information with colleagues around the world, severe acute respiratory syndrome might have gone unnoticed for months or even years. Not only did these organizations, which include the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, put two and two together when needed, they also identified the means of disease transmission. It was a feat of medical detection that proved critical in informing the healthcare community about the risk to physicians and nurses as well as providing methods of preventing transmission to others.

It took three years for the world’s most sophisticated laboratories to discover the organism that caused acquired immune deficiency syndrome or AIDS. The first publication about AIDS appeared in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report in June 1981. It was late 1984 before the first information about HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) was published in the scientific press. In the meantime, fear and stigma thrived in the wake of ignorance.

The best scientific minds in the world at that time were hampered in their search by the limits of 1980s technology. Today, better technology is available worldwide and scientists will close in on the source of the infection quickly, as long as funding continues and information can be shared freely among agencies.

The future promises even more progress, more lives saved and perhaps, ultimately, disease averted. As the world becomes a smaller and smaller place, it is more important than ever that such work continues.

Agencies like the WHO, CDC and public health departments are vital to this effort as are universities and research institutions. All depend on public and private funds to accomplish their goals. In a time of tightened budgets, such institutions are often targeted by budget cutters. One has only to look at the benefits of such groups, however, to recognize how critical they are to the lives of us all.

© Copyright 2003 Baylor College of Medicine. All Rights Reserved.