Reading somebody's weblog, I came across <a href="http://www.pidster.com/archives/000003.html" title="work in progress - pidster.com">this post from March 2003</a>:

<quote>So, i get up this morning and one of the first things i hear on the radio is that there's a mystery illness that's being transmitted via airline passengers.

The WHO has issued an emergency travel advisory, the illness is reported as an incurable pneumonia, and examples of it are stumbling, coughing, off planes all over the world.

[snip]

Ah well. it's probably nothing.</quote>

When did SARS start, and how does it work?  Let's hear from the Genetics Science Learning Center at the University of Utah:  <a href="http://gslc.genetics.utah.edu/features/sars/">SARS: The First New Virus of the 21st Century</a>