[Epidemiological characteristics of severe acute respiratory syndrome in Tianjin and the assessment of effectiveness on measures of control].

Objective: To analyze the epidemiologic characteristics of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and to evaluate the effectiveness on its major control measures in Tianjn.

Methods: Adopting two case reports 1 and 2, designed by the Tianjin Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop a unified case-tracing table including the map of the distribution of close contacts to SARS patients. With those methods, investigation on patients and their close contacts at hospital wards, families, communities and institutions of the patients were carried out.