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Published Online May 23, 2003
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1086616

Reports

Submitted on May 8, 2003
Accepted on May 22, 2003

Transmission Dynamics and Control of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

Marc Lipsitch 1, Ted Cohen 1, Ben Cooper 1, James M. Robins 1, Stefan Ma 2, Lyn James 2, Gowri Gopalakrishna 2, Suok Kai Chew 2, Chorh Chuan Tan 2, Matthew H. Samore 3, David Fisman 4, Megan Murray 5*

1 Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
2 Ministry of Health, Singapore.
3 Department of Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
4 Dept. of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; City of Hamilton Public Health and Community Service Department, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
5 Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Infectious Disease Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Fruit Street, Boston, MA, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mmurray{at}hsph.harvard.edu.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a recently described illness of humans that has spread widely over the past 6 months. Using detailed epidemiologic data from Singapore and the epidemic curves from other settings, we estimated the reproductive number for SARS both in the absence of interventions and in the presence of control efforts. We estimate that a single infectious case of SARS will infect about 3 secondary cases in a population that has not yet instituted control measures. Public health efforts to reduce transmission are expected to have a significant impact on reducing the size of the epidemic.


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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)