OPENING STATEMENT
SENATOR SUSAN M. COLLINS
“SARS: How Effective is the State and Local Response”
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Hearing
May, 21, 2003

MR. CHAIRMAN, thank you for calling this morning’s hearing to examine how effective the State and local response has been to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome – or SARS – in the United States, and to take a look at how well the federal government has worked to support and coordinate these efforts.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, is proving itself to
be a formidable global threat. There is neither a treatment nor a cure for this deadly, highly contagious virus that is spreading throughout Asia, and into parts of Europe, Canada and the United States. To date, there have been almost 8,000 probable cases of SARS reported in more than 30 countries worldwide and more than 660 people have died.

It is true that the worldwide toll for SARS is relatively small compared with, say, the three million people who died last year of AIDS. If SARS continues to spread, however, its death toll could skyrocket. Moreover, while we should be reassured that quick action on the part of the CDC and our State and local health officials has resulted in a relatively low number of probable SARS cases in the United States with no deaths, we should not rest easy. Given that the virus can go wherever a jetliner can travel, it is a very real possibility that we have not yet seen the full extent of this epidemic in our country.

In the wake of recent terrorist attacks and increasing fears about the spread of highly contagious diseases like SARS, our federal, State and local governments have become increasingly sensitive to the need for an effective, coordinated response to such events. While there is absolutely no evidence that the spread of SARS is part of a planned attack, our institutional capability to deal with such an epidemic is the same whether it is the consequence of a terrorist act or a naturally- occurring event. In fact, a major side benefit of all of our efforts to strengthen our homeland defense capabilities should be an improved ability to respond to all kinds of emergencies.

Over the past two years, the Congress has appropriated significant amounts of funding for public health activities at the federal, state and local levels as part of our bioterrorism preparedness effort. Moreover, the supplemental appropriations bill passed earlier this year contains an additional $16 billion for CDC specifically to address the SARS outbreak. I therefore look forward to hearing whether these additional resources have improved our ability to respond to public health emergencies like SARS.

In addition, since physicians, nurses, and other health care workers on the front lines are likely to be the first individuals to encounter cases of an emerging infectious disease like SARS, it is critical that they have the support and information that they need from federal agencies like the CDC to identify and effectively contain such an outbreak.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to examining these and other issues this morning, and once again, I thank you for convening this hearing.

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