For 31-year-old secretary Angel Sin, a simple cough or sneeze by a passer-by is all it takes for memories of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak to come flooding back.

"SARS has left me feeling very paranoid. For two months, I didn't want to go out," she said. "I am on much higher alert now. Every time when someone sneezes or coughes, you can't help thinking you might catch something like

Sin's anxieties mirror those of many in Hong Kong as the free-wheeling financial and tourism hub rebuilds itself from the devastation caused by the crisis that left nearly 800 people dead infected more than 8,400 worldwide.

SARS killed 299 people in Hong Kong and infected nearly 1,800 between March and June. It was the world's second worst-hit region after mainland China.

Thursday marks the one-year anniversary of the first recorded fatality from SARS, 64-year-old Chinese doctor Liu Jianlun dying in hospital on March 4 last year after travelling to Hong Kong from neighbouring Guangdong province.

Between checking into Hong Kong's Metropole Hotel and dying in hospital, Liu passed the disease to a handful of other tourists in the same hotel, helping to trigger a global health crisis.

As well as devastating Hong Kong's economy, SARS left a lasting psychological legacy on the city.

A telephone poll by the Hong Kong Mood Disorders Center at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, a third of 400 respondents said they were still emotionally distressed by the outbreak.

A tenth of them reported anxiety attacks and another 4 percent suffered from insomnia, breathing difficulties and chest discomfort.

The study also showed that if SARS re-emerged, 75 percent of people would immediately don surgical masks or avoid to go to public places and some 17 percent said they would be left in a state of depression.

"We were frightened for our lives," says Grace Chui, a mother of two who lives in Block E of the Amoy Gardens housing estate in Hong Kong's Kowloon District -- the building made notorious when it became the focus of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in Hong Kong.

In one month, 321 cases of the respiratory disease emerged in the complex. Of those 43 died.

Argument still rages on how a disease that went on to become a worldwide outbreak could have been so concentrated withiin Amoy Gardens' drab, characterless walls.

The government's theory is that rats spread the disease. Others suggest poor and leaky sewerage systems were the culprit.

Whatever the cause, those weeks during March and April 2003 represent a time of fear and doubt that few in Hong Kong are likely to forget.

"At that time, all of my relatives and friends were really worried for us," said Chui. "They would call us to make sure we were okay. But if they couldn't find us, they would expect the worst."

When the virus first broke at Amoy Gardens, Chui and here family were immediately moved out for two months before residents were transferred from a sealed apartment complex to rural quarantine camps, one of a series of measures contain the pneumonia-like illness.

Mabel Lau, a resident in another block of Amoy Gardens, still lives with the fear she felt during those dark days.

"It taught me that life is so fragile and there are things that you can't control," said Lau, 35.

She said the area became a "ghost town" as people shunned walking in the streets to avoid countact with the public. She recalls watching at midnight residents from Block E being taken away by police vans to quarantine camps.

"This was when I realised how severe the SARS situation had become. It gave me a chill. I felt very isolated."

Maggie Cheng, a teacher, was ordered to carry out stringent body temperature checks of her students everyday to ensure they hadn't developed a temperature, the first symptom of SARS. When three of her students were taken hospital with suspected SARS, the atmosphere darkened.

"We were all scared to death at that time. SARS gave me very unhappy memories. How could I know I wouldn't be the person next to catch the disease?" she asked.

TERRA.WIRE