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While there are anecdotal case studies of individuals behind some outbreaks, there is little concentrated research in the field. 'There hasn't been enough time, thinking and probing' to hazard more than a guess as to why superspreaders are responsible for so much of the spread of SARS, said Dr. Donald A. Henderson, the epidemiologist who led the global eradication of smallpox. Referring to a well-known study of a cold outbreak at the Eagle Heights Apartments in Madison, Wis., and to an early theory that the outbreak of more than 300 SARS cases in the Amoy Gardens apartment complex in Hong Kong was spread by cockroaches, he said: 'Don't blame the cockroaches. In Wisconsin, it wasn't the cockroaches, it was the kids.' 2 PICS; 1. Long-distance sneezers may be better spreaders of infectious diseases such as SARS. 2. History's most famous disease superspreader was Typhoid Mary, born [Mary Mallon] in Ireland in 1869 and a cook for wealthy New York families.; Credit: 1. New York Times

The current 5.6 per cent death rate for SARS is much higher than that for the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, which was less than 1 per cent, said Dr. Klaus Stoehr, the scientific director of WHO's SARS investigation. But the influenza pandemic killed from 20 million to 40 million people in the world because it spread so quickly. One theory about the rising SARS death rate is that the initial cases involved health care workers who were healthy adults 20 to 45 years old and who had better access to health care than others. A second theory is that many of the SARS deaths occurred among patients who became ill weeks ago but who died only recently after long hospital stays

The current 5.6 percent death rate for SARS is much higher than that for the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, which was less than 1 percent, said Dr. Klaus Stoehr, the scientific director of WHO's SARS investigation. But the influenza pandemic killed from 20 million to 40 million people in the world because it spread so quickly

One theory for the rising SARS death rate is that the initial cases involved health care workers who were healthy 20-to-45-year-old adults and who had better access to health care than others. Then, as the infected health workers unintentionally spread the disease to family members and friends, and they, in turn, to others, SARS has infected an increasing number of older people with heart disease, diabetes and other chronic ailments. If the death-rate trend continues, SARS will be unlike the first outbreaks of other newly discovered microbes where the initially high death rate substantially declined as the development of diagnostic tests and further epidemiologic investigation documented the existence of mild, even asymptomatic, cases. (If that happened with SARS, the death rate would be lower.) On Saturday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta posted on its Web site (www.cdc.gov) an advisory to doctors caring for SARS patients, saying the cause of the disease was unknown. The update came days after the W.H.O. had announced that the coronavirus was the cause of SARS and created some confusion as to whether the Americans and the W.H.O. disagreed on the matter. Although a C.D.C. spokesman said yesterday that the update was in error and would be corrected, the Saturday version remained on the Web site last night

Several SARS patients have infected more than 30 people, says the World Health Organization. The biggest reported superspreader is a 26-year-old airport worker admitted to Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong in early March. He infected 112 people, including every doctor and nurse who treated him. Referring to a well-known study of a cold outbreak at the Eagle Heights Apartments in Madison, Wis., and to an early theory that the outbreak of more than 300 SARS cases in the Amoy Gardens apartment complex in Hong Kong was spread by cockroaches, he said: 'Don't blame the cockroaches. In Wisconsin, it wasn't the cockroaches, it was the kids.' Photo: American Society for Microbiology,The New York Times / Snapshot of a sneeze. The biggest reported superspreader of SARS is an airport worker in Hong Kong who infected 112 people, including every doctor and nurse who treated him.; Graphic/Diagram: New York Times / An undated rendering of [Mary Mallon]

The illness called severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has hopped around the world recently and exploded in new outbreaks prompting epidemiologiststo ask: Is the disease carried by superspreaders? Referring to a well-known study of a cold outbreak at the Eagle Heights Apartments in Madison, Wis., and to an early theory that the outbreak of more than 300 SARS cases in the Amoy Gardens apartment complex in Hong Kong was spread by cockroaches, he said: 'Don't blame the cockroaches. In Wisconsin, it wasn't the cockroaches, it was the kids.' Whoever put SARS in the Amoy Gardens sewage pipes -- and one regular visitor was a dialysis patient at the Prince of Wales Hospital while the airport worker was on the nebulizer -- would be a superspreader, with the help of rusty pipes

The World Health Organization declared that a previously unknown member of the coronavirus..

Canada, particularly in the Toronto area, is the hardest-hit country outside Asia in the worldwide SARS epidemic, which is believed to have begun last November in southern China. As of Thursday, 27 countries and Hong Kong have reported a total of 3,389 cases. The number of cases in the United States was sharply reduced Thursday to 35, from 208, when federal health officials, as expected, adopted the World Health Organization's stricter definition of probable SARS cases. Worldwide, SARS is blamed for 165 deaths, for a death rate of 4.9 percent, the World Health Organization reported

The request is aimed at people who develop any of six symptoms of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome: severe headache, severe fatigue, muscle aches and pains, fever of 100.4 or higher, dry cough and shortness of breath. The request excludes people who have had cough or shortness of breath from pre-existing allergy or lung disease. Canadian health officials said that all the cases in the Toronto area can be traced back to an outbreak at Scarborough Grace Hospital, and they said that SARS is under control, in part because of their isolation policy. The outbreak in Toronto is now in its fourth generation of cases, increasing the complexity of tracing cases. About 7,000 people in the Toronto area had already been asked to stay in isolation since the outbreak began in March, and about 650 remain in isolation. Of the 35 American cases, 33 had traveled to an affected area in Asia. The two other cases involved a health worker who cared for a SARS patient and a household member of a SARS case

In fact, the investigation into part of the Ontario epidemic is now reaching into the United States. On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta sent a team of epidemiologists to Pennsylvania to help investigate a probable SARS case in a hospitalized patient who attended a religious meeting in Toronto on March 28. Canadian health officials have identified 28 other individuals with SARS who attended the Mass, held by members of the Bukas-Loob Sa Diyos Covenant Community, a Roman Catholic group. Health officials are trying to identify the estimated 500 people who attended the meeting and monitor their health. Of the 35 American cases, 33 had traveled to an affected area in Asia. The two other cases involved a health worker who cared for a SARS patient and a household member of a SARS case. Tests, still in the experimental stage, showed that five of the 33 patients were recently infected with the SARS virus, which is a new member of the coronavirus family. So far, infection with the SARS virus has not been documented among other suspect cases