The scientist who genetically decoded the SARS virus has warned that such epidemics will happen more frequently, with jet travel spreading diseases worldwide within days.
The executive director of the Genome Institute of Singapore, Edison Liu, said yesterday that while SARS-type epidemics would be more more frequent, modern medical responses could do in weeks what used to take decades.
"The rate of difficult pathogens, of plagues . . . may actively increase," said Dr Liu, in Melbourne for the International Congress of Genetics.
He said that one person was responsible for spreading SARS to Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Canada. "We are seeing emerging pathogens passed on much more quickly because of our capacity to move and to contact the international commerce that's now taking place."
If SARS had occurred before the jet age, it would probably have died out, he said.
Dr Liu said developing a vaccine for the SARS virus, which could easily mutate, was difficult.
Vaccines for similar viruses in animals were short-lived and some experimental ones had made animals ill. Human vaccines would have to be tested in communities exposed to SARS.