Concern has grown as the pneumonia-like illness known as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) rapidly spreads worldwide. To date, the virus has killed at least 79 people and sickened more than 2,200 people in Asia, Europe and North America.

As developments occur, the following University of California, Berkeley, researchers are available to comment on the virus and public health response to the disease.

Arthur Reingold, MD
Professor and head of the Division of Epidemiology at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health
Expertise: Reingold heads the California Emerging Infections Program, a joint program with state and local health departments, and is the principal investigator for the CDC grant funding the Center for Infectious Disease Preparedness based at UC Berkeley. Reingold can talk about all aspects of infectious diseases: health risks, challenges of detecting outbreaks, and safety precautions.

Reingold notes that SARS is believed to be a variant of a coronavirus, a group of viruses that spreads easily from person to person. He therefore recommends the same precautions used to avoid catching a flu or cold, such as frequent hand washing.

He says the steps taken by health officials in the United States to limit the spread of SARS - including the dissemination of information to the general public - has been appropriate.

Phone: (510) 642-0327
E-mail: reingold@uclink4.berkeley.edu

Tomás Aragón, MD, DrPH
Executive director of UC Berkeley's Center for Infectious Disease Preparedness
Expertise: Aragón can discuss the challenges of preparing for and responding to an infectious disease outbreak, as well as what safety precautions clinical providers and the public can reasonably take.

Aragón says that SARS will emerge as an important public health and societal issue. The response to control the spread of SARS will reveal gaps in preparedness against microbiological threats. They include the challenge of quarantining a person with an airborne contagious disease, sick employees that may infect co-workers because of a lack of sick days or disability coverage, and sick people that may spread the virus because they avoid or delay care because of a lack of medical coverage.

Prior to joining UC Berkeley, Aragón was the director and deputy county health officer for the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

Phone: To reach Aragón, contact Sarah Yang at (510) 643-7741 or Julie Huang at (510) 642-6051 at UC Berkeley's Media Relations office.

Alison Galvani, PhD
Post-doctoral research fellow at UC Berkeley's Department of Integrative Biology
Expertise: Epidemiology; spread of viral diseases and how viruses evolve to evade human immunity.

Galvani says the rapid spread of SARS indicates the potential for an epidemic reminiscent of the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918. "Though SARS has a low mortality rate, it seems to have a high rate of secondary infections, which is what really determines how damaging a pathogen will be," she says. "People should remember that the Spanish influenza in 1918 had a similar mortality rate but a high rate of secondary infections, and it killed 20 million people."

She notes, too, that the Spanish influenza pandemic occurred when mobility was much more restricted and the world's population was about half that of today. On the other hand, she says, current public health measures are much better than they were 85 years ago.

"The size of the epidemic will depend on how effective control efforts are," she adds.

Galvani was co-author of a paper that appeared recently in the journal Nature about the evolution of the influenza virus and how human immunity determines the diversity of the virus.

Phone: (510) 204-9112
E-mail: agalvani@nature.berkeley.edu

Lee W. Riley, MD (NOTE: Riley will be out of the country until April 8. He can do interviews starting April 9)
Professor of epidemiology and infectious diseases at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health
Expertise: Field epidemiology and international health; molecular mechanisms of drug-resistant pathogens.

He can discuss the common means of transmission for the SARS virus, "a new variant on an old pathogen," he says. This includes airborne transmission and direct contact with an infected person.

Riley says public health officials in the United States are doing the best they can to contain the spread of SARS, and that people should not panic. He says that SARS may be spreading more rapidly in Asia because of the crowded living conditions in many urban centers there.

Phone: (510) 642-9200
E-mail: lwriley@uclink4.berkeley.edu