SARS

The publication SARS - Acute Respiratory Syndrome represents the first comprehensive and high quality literary treatment of the course of the 21st century pandemic in our literature and at the same time provides important information about the necessity of careful surveillance in the post-epidemic period not only in the world but also in the Czech Republic. It will be read with interest not only by epidemiologists, microbiologists and infectious disease specialists. It is also intended for the general medical public, who will find interesting lessons, but also important information on how to act and protect themselves during a pandemic, not only SARS. The reader who is interested in more in-depth knowledge can find further details on the website.. from the review of doc. MUDr. Marie Staňková, CSc. SARS brought the lesson that, even in the 21st century, an infection can emerge that, due to specific conditions (air travel), can spread pandemically and spread to other continents in a short time. The pandemic has confirmed the importance and role of the WHO for infectious disease surveillance at the global level. She pointed out the importance of rapid communication by creating virtual laboratories for diagnosis and rapid identification of etiological agents and development of laboratory tests. Thanks to SARS, combined with the risk of bioterrorism, the impending influenza pandemic and avian flu, the EU has created the ECDC, the equivalent of the CDC in Atlanta, to coordinate activities aimed at protecting against infectious diseases, taking into account European specificities. from the text of the book