“Jet Age Fuels Epidemics”

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Edison Liu, executive director of the Genome Institute of Singapore and the first scientist to genetically decode the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), warned this week that jet travel will make outbreaks such as SARS more common, but that modern medical responses would meet the challenge. Liu said researchers 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.” This jet age will allow SARS-type epidemics to spread around the world within days; however Liu noted that current medical practices could accomplish in weeks what used to take decades.

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