SARS
The newcomer of the year was SARS or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which is caused by the coronavirus. After first being discovered in Asia in February 2003, it quickly spread around the world to 29 countries, causing quarantines, travel restrictions, fear, and some deaths.By the time SARS was contained in July, there were 8,098 probable SARS cases worldwide and 774 deaths. While that may not seem like a lot, considering that influenza causes 36,000 deaths just in the US each year, the fatality rate of 9.6% is relatively high for a viral illness like this.
In the United States, there were only 192 cases and no SARS-related deaths, althougth the CDC reports that 'serologic testing results suggest that a small proportion of persons who had illness consistent with the clinical and epidemiologic criteria for a U.S. case of suspect or probable SARS actually had SARS', so maybe these people didn't really have SARS.
And fortunately, children did not seem to be at high risk of getting sick with the SARS virus.
Although the number of cases were not very high considering this was a global illness, the financial impact and amount of fear the SARS virus created would make it a good candidate for virus of the year.
