On a feverish trail.

(From New Straits Times (Malaysia))

PEOPLE are succumbing to a mysterious respiratory illness all over the world and speculation about its cause is rife. Temporarily tagged Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), this health threat is reminiscent of the 1998 Nipah virus outbreak which claimed 105 lives in Malaysia.

When the Nipah problem first came to light in September that year, experts identified the cause as the Japanese encephalitis (JE) virus, transmitted from pigs to humans by mosquitoes. Pig farms were sprayed with insecticide while pigs and people were vaccinated against JE.

But people were still falling ill and dying.

There had been an erroneous diagnosis. It was only several months later that the causative agent was correctly identified by local investigators working with the Atlanta-based Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a new paramyxovirus, and named it the Nipah virus.

Once established that it was a new deadly virus with no known cure, the Government ordered the culling of more than 900,000 pigs to contain the outbreak. It worked, and reports of fatalities ceased.

We were caught unawares then, and we paid a heavy price for it.

Critics claimed that the outbreak was poorly handled. If the correct…