DOI: 10.1126/science.1086616 ISSN:
Transmission Dynamics and Control of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
Marc Lipsitch, Ted Cohen, Ben Cooper, James M. Robins, Stefan Ma, Lyn James, Gowri Gopalakrishna, Suok Kai Chew, Chorh Chuan Tan, Matthew H. Samore, David Fisman, Megan Murray- Multidisciplinary
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a recently described illness of humans that has spread widely over the past 6 months. With the use of detailed epidemiologic data from Singapore and epidemic curves from other settings, we estimated the reproductive number for SARS in the absence of interventions and in the presence of control efforts. We estimate that a single infectious case of SARS will infect about three secondary cases in a population that has not yet instituted control measures. Public-health efforts to reduce transmission are expected to have a substantial impact on reducing the size of the epidemic.