THE Anglo-American poet, critic and dramatist T S Eliot wrote in 1925: 'This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper'. I haven't read 'The Hollow Men', from which those words are taken, but they seem to be ominously prophetic.

Brilliant literary giant though he undoubtedly was, Thomas Stearns Eliot has never been bracketed in the same league as, for example, Nostradamus, the 16th century soothsayer who accurately predicted many events which have taken place centuries after his death. However, with what is currently happening in the world, perhaps we should promote T S to the Premier League of Prophets.

I'm talking about Sars, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, the flu-like disease for which there is no known cure.

I've always considered that were the world to come to a premature end, it would be through man doing something terminal -- such as unleashing global nuclear conflict.

'Rogue asteroids' colliding with Planet Earth would have been my nomination for the likeliest alternative to West nuking East and vice versa. No longer. The bang theory has gone out of the window to be replaced by T S Eliot's whimper.

Sars is now bracketed with Aids as a stealthy, killer disease which observes no national boundaries, creeds, religions or social strata. Though its effects are most evident in China, where it originated, Canada and Hong Kong, Sars is being ferried around the globe in airplanes. A medical expert said on radio that one cough from an infected person released millions of germs. No wonder worldwide sales of face masks have gone through the roof. It's an ill wind...

Given our government's reaction to the foot and mouth epidemic -- wholesale slaughtering and mountains of burning carcasses dotted around this green and pleasant land -- I think I would be looking over my shoulder with some trepidation if I was of Chinese origin and currently in the UK, though such extreme measures are apparently not yet being considered.

Health Secretary Alan Milburn says that Sars is a 'low risk' disease in the UK. Isn't that a bit like a football club manager being given a vote of confidence by his chairman or Neville Chamberlain's 'Peace For Our Time' statement in 1938, a year or so before the outbreak of World War Two?

I am sounding fatalistic because around the time that Sars replaced the Iraq conflict as headline news on TV and in the more serious papers, I read a report which added further weight to T S Eliot's 'whimper not a bang' prediction.

Apparently, there are deadly bacteria swirling around in the atmosphere which are totally resistant to any known vaccine.

The wholesale dishing out of anti-biotics in the past 20 or 30 years has led to these killer bugs mutating into organisms resistant to anything the medical profession possesses. And they are deadlier than Aids and Sars, both of which have already cut a considerable swathe through parts of Mother Earth.

I wonder if T S Eliot had flu when he wrote Hollow Men?