An Analysis of Setting Screenings During the Sars Outbreak

An Analysis of Setting Screenings during the SARS outbreak

Chenchao Zang

March 9th 2016

INTRODUCTION

At the end of 2002, a transmissible new disease called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) emerged in south China and became a global threat in mid-March 2003. Fortunately, with a cooperation across governments, health networks and travel networks coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO), SARS was successfully contained in less than 4 months.

In this analytical report, I will identify various groups that formed an alliance which was organized to implement border screenings at airports to prevent the spread of SARS. I will also describe their efforts and contribution in the process of instituting passenger screening at airports. Importantly, I will analyze distinctive reasons why they were willing to assemble an alliance to take actions on diminishing the transmission of SARS. In addition, I will evaluate how information and communication technologies (ICTs) facilitate the cooperation and coordination among these alliance members in setting border screenings at airports.

CASE NARRATIVE

[pic 1]Figure 1: Global cumulative distribution of SARS, April 2003. World Health Organization, 2003 (3).

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the first new and easily transmissible infectious disease of the twenty-first century, attracted the attention of professionals, politicians, and civilians all over the world. Based on the maps posted every month by WHO, in fewer than four months in 2003,  SARS spread from China to 25 countries and Taiwan (Figure 1). The authors state that “between November 2002 and July 2003, approximately 8100 people were infected with SARS, with nearly 800 people dying as a result” (Bowen and Laroe 130). The first recorded case occurred on November 16, 2002, in the city of Foshan, Guangdong Province, China which borders on Hong Kong. On Feb 21, through an elderly Chinese doctor, the SARS was carried out of the originating province for the first time and at least 16 people were infected in Hong Kong. Furthermore, within 10 days of the first case reported in Hong Kong, the disease had arrived in Vietnam, Canada, the United States, Singapore, the Philippines and Taiwan. As the situation became worse, “the strictest travel advisory in history” was issued by the WHO based on evidence that SARS was spreading by air travel along international routes (Bowen and Laroe 132). On July 5 2003, the outbreak of SARS had been contained worldwide.

NETWORKED ARGUMENT

To restrain the spread of SARS, WHO suggested to screen all inbound and outbound passengers at airports worldwide. The success of implementing this procedure required a broad international collaboration between individuals and organizations within and across disciplines, such as individual travelers, governments, airlines, and health authorities coordinated by WHO. Admittedly, it was not an easy process for the alliance to agree with each other for these policies in terms of interests and assumptions of various groups.

There is no doubt that national and global governance contributed and sacrificed significantly in order to set screenings on air travel passengers.  The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) notified Changi Airport, Singapore’s international hub, to set physical screening for all passengers from SARS affected regions. Bowen and Laroe state “Singapore made efforts on SARS surveillance continuously, such as designing a system with infrared scanners to screen the body temperature of travelers in Changi Airport” (133). Furthermore, a “comprehensive monitoring system” including temperature screening and scanners were put to use on April 23 for all arriving and departing passengers (Bowen and Laroe 133). The success of these scanners in other infected areas also showed a huge amount of efforts from Singapore’s national government to contain SARS.

[pic 2]Figure 2: Source: WHO, Brookings Institute, BMO Nesbitt Burns.

To have a great international reputation and minimize possible economical cost caused by SARS, the governments of every country became members of the alliance. The governments with effective and instant responses earned a positive reputation before the international community. Singapore received “international acclaim because of its efforts to contain the SARS virus” (“Soft on SARS”). Furthermore, all the infected countries and areas suffered from apparent and direct economic loss because of the outbreak of SARS. In order to curtail the economic effects induced by SARS, governments had to take actions to set screenings at airports. Hong Kong's economic growth dropped for all of 2003 by “30 to 50 percent” (Maggs and John 2). Pearce states “The damage to the economies of China and Hong Kong was between 1-3%. Total East Asian losses were estimated at $20 billion and Canada lost around $5 billion or 0.6% of its GDP. The US economy was impacted in spite of there being no deaths from SARS at a cost of over $7 billion in GDP losses” (1). Some analysts from Hong Kong state “if the disease were not quickly contained, Hong Kong would suffer long-term consequences from the diversion of foreign investments from the region” (Siu and Wong 3). Consequently,  if governments were not able to join the alliance to set screenings, the economic damage could be worse.