Which disease outbreak of 2002/3 caused 774 reported deaths, the majority being in Hong Kong, as reported by Andrew Brown for CNN?
Severe acute respiratory syndrome Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV). Between November 2002 and July 2003, an outbreak of SARS in southern China caused an eventual 8,098 cases, resulting in 774 deaths reported in 37 countries, with the majority of cases in Hong Kong (9.6% fatality rate) according to the World Health Organization (WHO). No cases of SARS have been reported worldwide since 2004.
Malik Peiris Joseph Sriyal Malik Peiris (裴偉士), ( ඡීරිස්), ( பீறிஸ்), FRS, Légion d'Honneur, was born on 10 November 1949, in Sri Lanka. He is referred to in scientific publications and media reports as JSM Peiris, JS Peiris, Joseph Peiris and, most commonly, as Malik Peiris. His close family and friends prefer to use the middle name Sriyal. He is a distinguished old boy of St. Anthony's College Kandy and later studied medicine at the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. This was followed by post graduate study at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, UK, leading to the award of the DPhil degree. After further work in the UK and Sri Lanka, he founded the clinical diagnostic and public health virology laboratory at Queen Mary Hospital, which is part of the University of Hong Kong, in 1995. Professor Peiris and his team of scientists and doctors were strategically placed to face the challenges of the Avian influenza virus outbreak, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus outbreak and, currently, the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus outbreak. Original research carried out by the Hong Kong laboratories have made major contributions to our knowledge of the causative viruses of these diseases, and our understanding, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of the diseases that these viruses cause. During the years 2003-2004, Professor Peiris was credited with authoring the highest number of high impact publications in the scientific world.