Dr. Carlo Urbani, 46, an Italian physician and expert on communicable diseases  first diagnosed SARS in an American businessman who had been admitted to a hospital in Hanoi, and alerted WHO (World Health Organization).

Dr. Anthony Fauci, as head of National Institutes of Health, leads US efforts to find the answer to SARS.
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CAN WE BEAT SARS??

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top expert on infectious diseases, explains what we know-and what we don't yet  know- about the new global menace.

Parade Magazine
June 8, 2003, Page 5
By Lyric Wallwork Winik

Introducing a 2 ½ page Interview with Dr. Fauci on SARS is his Profile.

TAKING ON A DEADLY FOE

Tony Fauci grew up in Brooklyn N.Y., in an apartment above his parent's pharmacy, where he helped out every Sunday,  establishing a work ethic that to date leads him to put in a 14 hour day, six days a week. But even though he typically arrives home after 9 p.m.. Dr.Fauci keeps a  family pact to eat dinner with his wife, Bioethisist Christine Grady, and three daughters at age 11-16.

Fauci was educated in Catholic Jesuit Schools, which he credits with instilling in him  focus and discipline, along with a profound belief in the importance of public service and a tolerance for other people's ideas. When he graduated from medical school in 1966, during the  Vietnam War, he had a choice of enlisting as a doctor in one of the military services or joining the Public Health Service. Fauci chose public health and was sent to NIH. What was supposed to be 3 year tour became a lifelong vocation.

In addition to being a researcher, Fuci is an active doctor who cares for patients with AIDS and other infectious diseases. (He met his wife at an AIDS patient's bedside.) That has given him a special perspective on health and on risk. " When I first started taking care of HIV-infected individuals with my own hands, I had no idea whether it was transmissible from the patient to a doctor," Fauci says.

"My wife, who was pregnant with our first daughter, was a nurse taking care of HIV infected individuals, and would ask each other at night, "Are we taking an unreasonable risk?"No, we decided, it's part of our profession. Wehave  to take a risk like that." But he  notes, the general public shouldn't face those risks. "Those are the people we are trying to protect, and you have to strive for excellence.