The 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in
China has lessons to teach hospitals on how to prevent the
spread of other respiratory diseases, according to new research
appearing in the April 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases,
currently available online. Hospitals were epicenters of SARS
transmission in Guangzhou province and Hong Kong in 2003. In
hospitals with especially severe outbreaks, the researchers
looked at environmental and administrative factors that may have
assisted in the transmission of the infection from one patient
to another. This new study suggests that hospital beds placed
too closely together, hospital staff working while having
symptoms of SARS, and the use of oxygen therapy were the most
significant risk factors associated with the spread of SARS in
26 hospitals in Guangzhou and Hong Kong. These findings have
implications for controlling other respiratory disease threats,
including pandemic influenza, according to senior author Joseph
Sung, MD, PhD, of the Chinese