Sars in Asia: Crisis, vulnerabilities, and regional responses

Asian Survey

Volumn 45, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 475-495

  Caballero Anthony, Mely ^a  

^a NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY   (Singapore)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DISEASE CONTROL; INFECTIOUS DISEASE; SEVERE ACUTE RESPIRATORY SYNDROME; STRATEGIC APPROACH;

ASIA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; EURASIA; WORLD;

EID: 24144481558     PISSN: 00044687     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/as.2005.45.3.475     Document Type: Article

References (72)

1. Note, in this article, "Asia" refers generally to the East and Southeast Asian region.
2. "SARS Outbreak Contained Worldwide," WHO press release, July 5, 2003, . Isolated reports of SARS cases in China have re-emerged, however, again raising concerns that the disease is making a comeback.
3. See WHO Update 4, "China Confirms SARS Infection in Two Previously Reported Cases," April 29, 2004, , accessed July 23, 2004.
4. Qualitative change in core values refers to the expansion of this list of values beyond issues such as sovereignty and autonomy to the protection of human rights, environment, etc. Similarly, referent objects - units or things seen to be existentially threatened - are no longer confined to states but may also include individuals and communities. See, for example, Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver, and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework of Analysis (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1998).
5. Richard Ullman, "Redefining Security," International Security 8:1 (Summer 1983), pp. 128-53.
6. For an excellent review of contestation in security discourses, see Muthiah Alagappa, ed., Asian Security Practice: Material and Ideational Influences (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), pp. 27-64.
7. Muthiah Alagappa, "Comprehensive Security: Interpretations in ASEAN Countries," in Robert Scalapino et al., eds., Asian Security Issues: Regional and Global (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1989), pp. 50-78.
8. Keynote address of Dr. Mahathir Mohamad at the First ISIS National Conference on Security, ISIS Focus, no. 17 (Kuala Lumpur: Institute of Strategic and International Studies, August 1986), p. 16.
9. Alagappa, Asian Security Practice, p. 624.
10. See Wu Xinbo, "China: Security Practice of a Modernizing and Ascending Power," in ibid., pp. 115-56.
11. For a detailed discussion on CSCAP, see Desmond Ball, The Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific: Its Record and Prospects (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 2000).
12. See CSCAP Memorandum No. 3: The Concepts of Comprehensive and Cooperative Security (Kuala Lumpur: Institute of Strategic and International Studies, 1995).
13. I b i d.
14. WHO Update 95: "SARS: Chronology of a Serial Killer," , accessed April 10, 2003.
15. See, for example, "Epidemic Is a 'Test' for China's Leadership," Washington Post, April 22, 2003, ,
16. and "For China, a Crisis of Epidemic, Image," Boston Globe Online, April 23, 2003, .
17. "Virus Badly Underreported in Beijing, WHO Team Finds," New York Times, April 17, 2003, .
18. See "For China, a Crisis of Epidemic, Image."
19. "Dictatorships and Disease," New York Times, April 17, 2003.
20. See also "Deception, by the Numbers," Asia Times Online, June 5, 2003, .
21. See Neil J. Beck, "What Does SARS Mean for China?" National Bureau of Asian Research, no. 13, May 9, 2003, .
22. David Lague et al., "The China Virus," Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), April 10, 2003.
23. Ellen Nakashima, "Vietnamese Celebrate Progress against Virus," Washington Post, May 1, 2003, accessed from , May 1, 2003.
24. See also Seth Mydans, "Hanoi SARS Survivor," International Herald Tribune, May 7, 2003, .
25. SARS spreads from close contact through respiratory droplets expelled during coughing or sneezing and by direct exchange of bodily fluids. See "SARS - Epidemiological Findings, and Case Management," , accessed July 23, 2003.
26. See also Elisabeth Rosenthal, "China Provides Clues on Origins of SARS," International Herald Tribune, April 28, 2003, , accessed April 28, 2003;
27. and WHO, "SARS: Breaking the Chain of Transmission," .
28. I b i d.
29. WHO Update 95, "SARS: Chronology of a Serial Killer."
30. See "The Cost of SARS: US$11 Billion and Rising," FEER, April 24, 2003.
31. See "Assessing the Impact and Cost of SARS in Developing Asia," Asian Development Outlook 2003 Update (Manila: Asian Development Bank [ADB], 2003).
32. See GIC (Government Investment Corporation) Daily Bulletin, Singapore, May 26, 2003, p. 4.
33. Nizam Idris, "The Impact of SARS on Singapore's Economy," IDEAglobal Ltd., Singapore, May 2003 (unpublished paper).
34. GIC Daily Bulletin, May 26, 2003, p. 4.
35. FEER, "The Cost of SARS."
36. According to the WHO, the death rate for SARS is less than 1% for people aged 24 and below but could be 50% for those over 65, making the overall case fatality ratio 14%-15%. See WHO Update 49: "SARS Case Fatality Ratio," May 7, 2003, , accessed May 23, 2003.
37. "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome: Status of the Outbreak and Lessons for the Immediate Future," WHO Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response (Geneva: WHO, May 20, 2003).
38. See, for example, "Epidemic of Fear," Boston Globe, June 1, 2003, , accessed June 6, 2003;
39. Xiang Bao and Theresa Wong, "SARS: Public Health and Social Science Perspectives," Economic and Political Weekly (Mumbai), June 21, 2003.
40. See also Emma Xiaoqin Fan, "SARS: Economic Impacts and Implications," Economic and Research Department (ERD) Policy Brief Series, no. 15, ADB, May 20, 2003, .
41. "Staying Cool on the SARS Battlefield," New Sunday Times (Kuala Lumpur), May 18, 2003.
42. "SARS Inciting 'Mass Panic' in Beijing," Washington Post, May 1, 2003, , accessed May 3, 2003.
43. "Outbreak Gave China's Hu an Opening," ibid., May 13, 2003, .
44. See also Beck, "What Does SARS Mean for China?"
45. "SARS Shakes Complacent Mood in China," New York Times, May 13, 2003, .
46. "China: It's Cooperating Now: By WHO," Straits Times, April 8, 2003.
47. "Virus Badly Underreported in Beijing, WHO Teams Finds."
48. "SARS Inciting 'Mass Panic' in Beijing."
49. In Hong Kong, for example, there were reported incidents where police met stiff resistance in tracing the whereabouts of people exposed to SARS patients and those who had been issued home confinement orders. See "Hong Kong Police Take on Expanded Role in Fighting SARS," New York Times, April 24, 2003, , accessed April 25, 2003;
50. "Macapagal Bares Tough Measures to Fight SARS," Inquirer News Service (Philippines), April 25, 2003, ;
51. "Laws Not up to SARS Epidemic," Washington Post, April 26, 2003, .
52. See Joint Statements of ASEAN + 3 Ministers of Health Special Meeting on SARS, Kuala Lumpur, April 26, 2003;
53. Joint Statement of the Special ASEAN Leaders' Meeting on SARS, Bangkok, April 29, 2003;
54. and the Joint Statement on the Special ASEAN-China Leaders' Meeting on SARS, Bangkok, April 26, 2003, at .
55. "SARS Crisis: China Bids to Reassure Region," The Nation Online, .
56. See, for example, Shannon Selin, "The Security Implications of SARS," Canadian Consortium on Asia Pacific Security, CANCAPS Bulletin, no. 37, May 2003, pp. 9-13.
57. See Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, p. 5.
58. For more on the process of securitization, see Ole Wæver, "Securitization and Desecuritization," in On Security, ed. Ronnie Lipschutz (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), pp. 46-86.
59. See "Global Defense against the Infectious: Disease Threat," in Communicable Diseases 2002, ed. Mary Kay Kindhauser (Geneva: WHO, 2003).
60. For an excellent discussion of the interrelatedness of these factors, see Jennifer Brower and Peter Chalk, The Global Threat of New and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases: Reconciling U.S. National Security and Public Health Policy (Santa Monica, Calif: RAND, 2003), pp. 13-30.
61. Dr. Malik Peiris, CNN International interview, May 7, 2003.
62. This is based on the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) definition of human security, discussed comprehensively in UNDP, UNDP Human Development Report 1994 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
63. In ASEAN, track-two organizations such as CSCAP and the ASEAN-International Institute of Strategic Studies (ASEAN-IISS) have started to use the concept of human security. Former Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan used the concept frequently during the height of the Asian financial crisis. Although Japan started to use human security as a platform of its foreign policy during the leadership of the late Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi (1998-2000) and had started a Human Security Fund, human security has not really found its way into the country's official national security discourse.
64. See Olive Shinana, Nompumelelo Zungu-Dirwayi, and William Shinana, "AIDS: A Threat to Human Security," in Lincoln Chen, Jennifer Leaning, and Vasant Nahasimha, eds., Global Health Challenges for Human Security (Boston, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 141-60.
65. Ibid., pp. 150-51.
66. See United Nations Chronicle, 38:1 (2001), .
67. Cited in Human Security Now (New York: Commission on Human Security, 2003), p. 99.
68. See "China on the Verge of AIDS Epidemic," Straits Times Interactive, September 6, 2002, .
69. "More than 500,000 AIDS Victims in Cambodia by 2010," ibid., September 30, 2002.
70. Author's interview with ASEAN officials, April 26, 2003, Jakarta.
71. For a more extensive discussion, see Mely Caballero-Anthony, "Health and Human Security in Asia: Realities and Challenges," in Chen et al., Global Health Challenges for Human Security, pp. 233-56.
72. Mely Caballero-Anthony, "Health and Human Security in Asia."