Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 20, 2004

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is an atypical form of pneumonia. It first appeared in November 2002 in Guangdong Province, China. SARS is now believed to be caused by the SARS virus. Around 10% of infected people die. After the People's Republic of China suppressed news of the outbreak both internally and abroad, the disease spread rapidly, reaching neighboring Hong Kong and Vietnam in late February 2003, and then to other countries via international travellers. The last case in this outbreak occurred in June, 2003. In the outbreak, SARS caused 8,069 cases of disease and 775 deaths. There have also been speculations that SARS is a man-made disease - see SARS conspiracy theory.

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