By the time you read this the SARS B
crisis is likely to have got doubly worse than at the time the article was written. According to the World Health Organisation, by 23 April the SARS virus had killed 251 people in 27 countries, with 4,288 probable cases. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is a totally new flulike infectious disease that is now epidemic in Hong Kong, Beijing and the Shanxi province in China.
There have also been 16 deaths in Toronto, Canada, the fifth largest city in North America, although by the time the WHO - for the first time ever in its 55-year history - issued its warnings against people travelling there, the outbreak had been in decline for four weeks, with no new incidences for a week.
With nearly double the mortality rate of the Spanish Flu epidemic that ended up killing 20-40 million people worldwide in 1918, the outbreak is straining public health systems in affected areas, causing concern across communities worldwide, and killing over 5 per cent of those who catch the disease - many of them older people. The fear is that if it reaches Africa, where millions are already debilitated and their resistance reduced by HIV, the death toll could be enormous.
One US general practice doctor has estimated that if SARS carries on in the pattern it has started, we could be looking at some 100 million deaths by January 2004. But this appears to be a vast exaggeration.
One expert told the Guardian that despite the use of various antiviral drugs (many of which have severe side-effects), antibiotics (for secondary infection) and steroids to protect the lungs of those struck down by the virus, there is no cure for SARS: "We haven't got anything effective to throw at it."
While the Spanish Flu epidemic was (especially troops) along shipping and trading routes, SARS - as with other infectious diseases these days - has been rapidly spread across vast distances by the frequency and ease of international travel: it could even drive the final nail into the coffins of a number of flagging airlines such as Air Carada
One very worrying aspect of the new bug thought to be a coronavirus, a relacive
of the common cold. s that whatever virus s behind SAPS. t s unusual, • hardy surr ing for several hours outside the human body, unlike the viruses responsible for colds or flu. With this toughness, the virus can be transmitted via inanimate infected objects too: one button in a lift in Hong Kong is thought to be responsible for several infections.
Travel restrictions to affected areas, health surveillance and quarantine measures are being enforced by an emboldened WHO which, following the very public Uturn in policy and sacking of the Chinese health minister is now accepted by the Beijing regime as 'partners' in the fight against the virus.
However there are concerns that there may be many more unreported cases in China, while growing panic and fear of a heavy-handed government crackdown to impose quarantine restrictions on thousands who have been in contact with SARS sufferers have led to a mass exodus from the capital, potentially spreading the disease further afield. .... SARS is above all a virus linked with freed to spread and take root by privatised medicine and an • absence of public precautions spread by the large movements of people ...
Toronto's mayor, Mel Lastman, gave television interviews angrily denounced the restrictions placed on the city. He, and the Canadian government, are aghast at the devastating impact such a health warning could have not only on Toronto's relatively limited tourist industry, but on its wider economy, which accounts for 16 per cent of
Canada's GDP. Canadian papers have even
warned that the crisis could destabilise the
Canadian dollar, which had been strengthening against the USS.
Health chiefs in Ontario, the province which includes Toronto and the Canadian capital Ottawa, are facing the hefty bills for increased precautions against the spread of SARS through the infection of hospital staff -and the long-term consequence of rising waiting lists as non-urgent treatment is cancelled as part of the crackdown. They are furious that they have been given only token funding by the Canadian government to help meet the costs.
The economic fall-out from SARS is also terrifying authorities in other affected areas. Exports from Hong Kong and the manufacturing heart of southern China's Pearl River Delta could be severely damaged if the outbreak is not controlled relatively soon. Tourism is obviously severely affected. GDP forecasts are being cut back by 1 percent in Thailand ($1.3 billion) and Hong Kong ($1.7 billion). The WHO has estimated the total cost to the world's economies could be as high as f30 billion.
Of course not every sector of capitalism • ••• is losing out: the profiteers have been quick to capitalise on public paranoia, selling protective masks at inflated prices, while purveyors of disinfectant and other equipment to protect health workers against the virus are also making a killing.
Internet bulletin boards are full of conspiracy theories as to the origin of the virus. Bio-terrorism is up there in the top five theories. Fundamentalists of every persuasion are rubbing their hands in glee again at the appearance of yet another Horseman of the Apocalypse in the wake of the war on Iraq. The Sun is even running a serious story that SARS is really from outer space!
The reality is that the virus could very easily have evolved quite naturally -although bio-engineering techniques are well known to be a major potential route to the creation of new viruses and bacteria.
The conditions for the rapid spread of a new respiratory disease, maybe across from birds or pigs to humans, where our immune systems - not having confronted this virus before - are vulnerable to infection, are easy to identify.
Accessible air travel has already been mentioned as a modern major factor in transmission; over-crowded housing with poor sanitation is another.
The privatisation of China's once trailblaizing rural health care services, and the imposition of user fees for treatment in its state-run hospitals, have also played a key VISITED