Bush gives OK to quarantine those with SARS

WASHINGTON — President Bush today gave health officials authority to quarantine Americans sick with the highly contagious new mystery illness.

Health officials have no immediate plans to use the new powers in fighting severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.

In an executive order signed today, Bush added SARS to the list of diseases for which health authorities have authority to involuntarily quarantine Americans.

It’s the first time a new disease has been added to the list in two decades.

"If spread in the population," the order says, SARS "would have severe public health consequences."

Several diseases have long been on the list for which quarantine may be used: cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever and several viral hemorrhagic fevers.

SARS, whose symptoms include fever, aches, cough and shortness of breath, has killed at least 85 people in Asia and Canada and sickened at least 2,300 in more than a dozen nations as infected travelers spread the disease. In the United States, 100 cases in 27 states have been reported.

About 4 percent of the victims have died from the disease, though none of them in this country. There’s no cure yet, but most sufferers are recovering with timely hospital care.