Fear is greatest enemy in global Sars epidemic
Apr 25 2003 By Nicholas Craig, The Journal
Severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, is hammering Hong Kong's economy and highlighting huge difficulties in China's public health network.
My own close links with the Far East - particularly China - make this crisis keenly felt.
I have seen many examples of China's network of public hospitals, rural clinics and private facilities that will prove so hard to change. The system is inefficient and inequitable.
An epidemic such as Sars would test any country's healthcare system. In China it is pushing it to breaking point.
Already, more than five million Chinese suffer from tuberculosis. One million more have Aids. China's health system has slid backwards since the days of Chairman Mao. It then had an army of "barefoot doctors," who were workers trained to serve basic healthcare needs.
It was a remarkably successful arrangement, which managed to ensure basic health care for 85pc of its people.
The economic reforms of 1979 put an end to centralised control and major investment in healthcare. As a result, China's ability to respond to crises such as Sars is badly weakened. The one glimmer of light is the candour of the Chinese - belated but welcome.
Premier Wen Jiabao said that although progress against Sars had been made, "the overall situation remains grave."
It reflects the country's wish to lift the veil and become part of the world market.
Apparently £35m ($55m) has been pledged by the government to fight Sars. Epidemic prevention divisions for railway, road and airline transport are being set up.
Many people have said Sars is to China and Hong Kong what September 11 was to New York - a sudden, unexpected event causing death and economic paralysis.
Beijing and Singapore schools are closed, hotels are empty, airports are quiet. The disease has already wiped up to 1pc of GDP growth off the economies of Hong Kong and Singapore.
Economists warn that if Sars is not controlled quickly, it could weigh heavily on the global economy and tip it into recession. The problem is rising public fear, which is having a far more devastating effect than the number of Sars cases.
* Nicholas Craig is a partner at Watson Burton law firm.
