TY - JOUR AU - Khan, Kamran AU - Muennig, Peter AU - Gardam, Michael AU - Zivin, Joshua Graff T1 - Managing Febrile Respiratory Illnesses during Hypothetical SARS Outbreaks T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2005 VL - 11 IS - 2 SP - 191 SN - 1080-6059 AB - Since the World Health Organization declared the global outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) contained in July 2003, new cases have periodically reemerged in Asia. This situation has placed hospitals and health officials worldwide on heightened alert. In a future outbreak, rapidly and accurately distinguishing SARS from other common febrile respiratory illnesses (FRIs) could be difficult. We constructed a decision-analysis model to identify the most efficient strategies for managing undifferentiated FRIs within a hypothetical SARS outbreak in New York City during the season of respiratory infections. If establishing reliable epidemiologic links were not possible, societal costs would exceed $2.0 billion per month. SARS testing with existing polymerase chain reaction assays would have harmful public health and economic consequences if SARS made up <0.1% of circulating FRIs. Increasing influenza vaccination rates among the general population before the onset of respiratory season would save both money and lives. KW - Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome KW - Influenza-Like-Illness KW - Influenza Vaccination KW - Mass Screening KW - Cost-Benefit Analysis KW - Human KW - perspective KW - United States DO - 10.3201/eid1102.040524 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/11/2/04-0524_article ER - End of Reference