Terrifying for Asia, worrying for the world
Apr 5th 2003 From <a href=www.economist.com>The Economist Global Agenda AP
Life in many Asian countries has been severely disrupted by the outbreak of a new, potentially fatal respiratory illness. With travellers taking the disease to the West, it is now a concern for the rest of the world too
BLAME it on China. By the end of February, officials in Guangzhou were telling locals that an epidemic of a new and deadly flu-like disease was over. Within weeks, though, there was panic in neighbouring Vietnam and Hong Kong as the new disease, dubbed Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), spread across Asia. Around 2,400 cases have been reported worldwide, and the death toll has reached more than 80. Apart from the human cost, the financial impact on the countries affected is already heavy.
It did not take long for health officials to point the finger at China, which is also believed to have been the source of an outbreak of avian flu in 1997. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued an urgent warning that travellers should postpone non-essential trips to both Hong Kong and the area around Guangzhou, where the disease appears to have originated five months ago; the WHO has also identified outbreaks of SARS in three further regions of the country. In addition to crowded living conditions that make southern China a notorious crucible for disease—many people there live close to farm animals—Chinese traditions of secrecy about health problems help diseases to spread. Only in the middle of March did China allow in a team of specialists from the WHO to help work out the cause of the disease and how best to prevent it spreading further.
Hong Kong, Singapore
The WHO gives information and updates on SARS. The Hong Kong Health Authority provides up-to-date news on the outbreak. The governments of Australia, Canada and the United States issue general information and travel advice.
Across Asia, health officials have been re-enforcing old quarantine laws, shutting schools and imposing restrictions on travellers. Taiwan has isolated 500 residents. Thailand is considering using several former leper colonies to quarantine large groups of people. In Hong Kong, one housing estate was sealed off after 213 cases of SARS were linked to it; residents were later moved to special isolation camps. The city has almost 700 recorded cases. A further 1,000 relatives of SARS victims have been told not to leave their homes and threatened with a $640 fine and up to six months in jail if they do. Both Hong Kong and its rival city state, Singapore, have closed schools as a preventive measure. Face masks are now a common sight on the streets as well as in the hospitals. Some lawmakers have urged the Hong Kong government to require everyone to wear them. Indonesia and Malaysia have both had their first suspected cases, although Malaysian officials were keen to deny reports of SARS in the country, and said a postmortem of one suspected victim would take a surprising two weeks.
Such measures, and concern about the infectious nature of the disease, have inevitably affected business. On March 31st, stockmarkets across Asia fell sharply, thanks in part to fears about the slow progress of the war in Iraq, and in part to fears about the effects of SARS. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index touched a four-and-a-half year low. Standard & Poor's, a credit-rating agency, warned that SARS could dent the city's revenues. The fall-out has spread from aviation and hotel shares to retail stocks and other transport companies. Even property developers have been affected as some are unable to show new flats. Companies like HSBC and Hewlett-Packard temporarily closed some of their offices in Hong Kong. Economists now think SARS could have a substantial impact on economic growth across the whole region.
Travel restrictions are now in place at airports around the world after the WHO urged airports in affected cities to quiz passengers about their health before check-in and to discourage anyone who had had a fever within the past 24 hours from flying. In addition to the airports serving Beijing, Shanghai, Guandong, Hong Kong, Singapore and Hanoi, restrictions have also been introduced in Toronto after an elderly couple returning from Hong Kong brought the disease back to Canada, where there have now been six deaths.
In the United States, officials are investigating 51 suspected cases in 21 states. One passenger aircraft from Tokyo was quarantined in San Jose, California, for several hours on Tuesday after passengers who had joined the plane in Hong Kong showed symptoms of SARS (which later proved misleading). American health officials report that the disease they are seeing appears to be milder than that spreading through Asia, which suggests that the virulence of the disease differs among victims. A handful of cases has also been identified in Europe, with suspected victims in Britain, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Switzerland, Romania and France.
In addition to restrictions at airports and the WHO's travel warning, many countries have been urging their citizens to think twice before travelling to Asia, denting both the region’s tourist industry and, more generally, its business, social and sporting links to the rest of the world. The International Ice Hockey Federation has cancelled this month’s women’s world championship, due to be held in Beijing. America has advised travellers that the quality of health services in places such as Hong Kong and Hanoi is being affected by the pressure on hospitals. The American government has offered free flights out of both Hong Kong and Guangzhou to non-essential diplomats.
Asian airlines, which have been prospering over the past few years despite the global aviation downturn, thanks to massive interest in China, have been badly hit by the disease. China Airlines, Thai Airways, Cathay Pacific and Dragonair have all cancelled routes or reduced their frequency. Taiwan is considering suspending air links to China, which would be a blow to many of the companies that manufacture in China. ANA, a Japanese airline, reported that passenger traffic between Tokyo and Hong Kong fell by a fifth after the disease was identified. Other sorts of business are being affected just as directly: shares in CTCI Corp, which builds petrochemical plants in China, fell sharply on Monday after four of its Taipei-based employees fell ill with SARS-like symptoms.
Health officials investigating and treating SARS are furious at the conduct of the Chinese. Could the disease have been contained, they wonder, had Beijing been more open? The temptation for the Chinese, it seems, was to deal with the disease themselves and make it go away without causing a panic. Unfortunately, the death and disruption now caused is far greater than it would have been had they not been afraid to speak out. Only now is the international opprobrium heaped upon the Chinese getting through to them. The state council, under new premier Wen Jiabao, has called for an overhaul of the system for dealing with public medical emergencies. And on April 4th, the government issued an official apology for its slow response to the outbreak.
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Provided by Moreover Technologies The lessons from SARS Apr 3rd 2003