SARS and Carlo Urbani

On February 28, the Vietnam French Hospital of Hanoi, a private hospital of about 60 beds, contacted the Hanoi office of the World Health Organization (WHO). A patient had presented with an unusual influenza-like virus. Hospital officials suspected an avian influenzavirus and asked whether someone from the WHO could take a look. Dr. Carlo Urbani, a specialist in infectious diseases, answered that call (Figure). In a matter of weeks, he and five other health care professionals would be dead from a previously unknown pathogen. We now know that Hanoi was experiencing an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). . . .