Novel and Re-emerging Respiratory Viral Diseases

The past decade has seen mounting global concern regarding viral outbreaks such as SARS, avian influenza and West Nile virus. In 2004 and 2005, reports of bird-to-human, and possible human-to-human, transmissions of the H5N1 influenza viruses raised fears that these viruses could cause a pandemic on the scale of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Previous to this, a novel coronavirus had been identified as the aetiological agent of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a new respiratory viral disease that emerged at the end of 2002 and caused profound disturbances in over 30 countries worldwide in 2003. It is not known whether the SARS coronavirus will re-emerge, e…