When the deadly SARS virus first appeared in 2002, the health community was ill prepared. Globally, 8,000 people were infected and 774 died, including 44 in Canada.
Hoping to learn from that experience, the World Health Organization recently asked a group of experts to determine which treatments seemed to work best. (Many patients were treated with antiviral drugs and steroids to control the lung inflammation.) Unfortunately, the experts ended up empty handed. "It is disappointing that none of the research on SARS is likely to be useful," concludes the report in the Public Library of Science-Medicine.