It was February of 2003. As the last patient of a busy day walked in, Dr Liu Jianlun was relieved. His mind was already preoccupied with the upcoming marriage event he had to attend in Hongkong that weekend.
It seemed to be a simple case of fever but the farmer from Guangdong was unusually breathless.
” Sir, this nasty thing is choking me, here.” He pointed at his chest.
Dr Liu admitted him to the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital in Guangzhou and left for Hong Kong. He checked into room no. 911 on the 9th floor of the Metropole Hotel.
As he climbed the steps, he was aware about the thing inside him, choking the breath out of him. He took the lift and punched the button 9.
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Dr Liu never recovered from that Respiratory distress and died in the ICU on 4th march. His brother in-law also died on 19 march. But the thing moved in to all the 30 doctors and nurses that had attended him.
[ 23 people who had used that lift, all fell ill. That included seven from the 9th floor of the Metropole.]
Thailand.
Dr. Carlo Urbani was a WHO expert on such diseases. This case of Dr Liu seemed to him as an unusually aggressive thing. But he had to leave early for Bangkok on official work. He died in the hospital of Bangkok and now the thing was all over Thailand in no time.
Vietnam
Johnny Chen who coincidentally had a room across Liu in the Metropole had already left for Vietnam. He could feel the thing was choking him. He had a fever and got admitted to a hospital in Hanoi. He died on 13 March. But before that he had already infected 38 hospital staff of Vietnam.
Canada:
An elderly woman named Kwan Sui-Chu was also staying in the same Metropole Hotel that day. She had returned to Toronto and died on 5 march. But before that she had infected 13 people including her son who died and now the thing sneaked out into Canada.
Singapore
26-year-old Esther Mok had stayed in the same 9th floor and had used the same lift before flying to Singapore. She choked and was admitted to the TTS hospital in Singapore. The hospital pulled her out of death but the thing marched into Singapore.
Hongkong: again.
It all had started in Hongkong in late February. As the thing moved back into Hongkong again, 99 hospital staff ( 17 medical students) of the Prince of Wales hospital were inflected. The circle of spread was complete.
Up till now, the Chinese Government had been denying the existence of the thing. It had suppressed their own press and didn’t allow WHO to enter the province.
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Finally, On 2nd April, Chinese medical officials allowed the WHO team to work on the thing. It was a month and half late. By that the thing has moved into 29 countries, infected 8096 people of whom 774 are dead.
On 16 April 2003, the thing got its present name the SARS virus.
It is estimated that around 80% of the Hong Kong cases were inadvertently infected by Dr Liu Jianlun.
Dr Ramakanta's Ideas 