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With the virus now isolated, scientists in Hong Kong and elsewhere can move forward quickly to characterize the agent, determine its relationship with known viruses, and establish a definitive identity. Results will be shared among 11 leading laboratories in a network set up on Mon 17 Mar 2003 by WHO.

My friend I'm sure you realize that antiviral drugs are not the answer.

When Virologists open a can of W.A. it entails looking into the soul of this bug, finding it's soft spot and developing a vaccine that will protect the lives of our friends and loved ones.

There will be some of the best and brightest in this quest...

You are assuming a vaccine is possible. It takes quite a while to come up with a viable vaccine, not to mention getting it through FDA approval. Not all viruses can be fought with a vaccine - look at HIV. Maybe one day, but we've been working on that since the '80's.

Actually, I do believe that some of these problems will be solved with anti-virals, eventually. A new one was just approved for HIV a week or so ago.

I'm also not convinced our best and brightest will be working on this. I'm not a particularly big fan of the CDC after seeing them botch the anthrax situation. I no longer, quite frankly, trust their judgement.

Many of the best and brightest are at the pharmaceutical companies - and they'll only have a chance to work on this peripherally, initially - diagnostic test kit production. Any drug or vaccine will likely have to come through them - that's years away.

The rest of the "best and the brightest" are at the universities and specialized research institutes. Their work will depend on grant money - which, starting from the time they write the grant, will take at least 1-2 years from now to get a project up and running.

My point is, drug/vaccine discovery is very, very expensive and requires time. There is just no magical can of Whoop Ass outside the Marines.