IT TOOK three years to identify the pathogen that causes Aids,
and another two to determine its genome sequence, but Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) was sorted out in a month,
which was a triumph for biomedicine. On 12 March 2003 the World
Health Organisation called an international alert. By 12 April
the British Columbia (Canada) cancer agency published the
genetic sequence of the virus. The screening tests went into
production immediately. A doctor from the United States said
this was the medical equivalent of the "shock and awe" operation
in Baghdad in the Iraq war (1). The global economy was shaken by
fear of atypical pneumopathy, with losses of $50bn predicted
(more than double the impact of foot-and-mouth disease in the
United Kingdom in 2001). But once the scientific work and the
media reaction were over, the economy was able to reassert its
rights. Dr Norbert Bischofberger, executive vice president for
research and development at Gilead (a pharmaceutical laboratory
specialising in fatal infec