Abstract
The 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic was the first epidemic of the 21st century to pose a threat to global health and generate considerable panic across the globe. Fortunately, due to the rapid containment of the epidemic, both the harm to the public’s health and economic losses were not as considerable as many feared they might be. After a short period of economic turmoil, lasting a few months, normal patterns of economic activity were resumed. However, during this period there were dramatic reductions in air travel and tourism, and leisure and/or hospitality services in the areas affected by SARS. These losses were driven by public avoidance, which contributed to a disproportionate aggregate disease prevention cost. This has led to concerns that an outbreak exhibiting higher mortality rates could result in a catastrophic impact on the global economy caused by even more drastic behavioral responses. These behavioral responses were related to individual perspectives about the risk of contraction and death, as well as the perceived costs and benefits of disease avoidance measures. How individuals form these avoidance responses has a significant role in determining the pathway of an epidemic. When situating these considerations within the trend of increasing emergence of zoonotic diseases and increasing globalization, analyses of the behavioral reaction to the SARS epidemic are potentially important. With this in mind, critical analysis of government intervention mechanisms is considered to address how cost-effective intervention might alter behavioral responses to lead to more positive outcomes.
Highlights
TO SEVERE ACUTE RESPIRATORY SYNDROMEWith growing globalization comes increased exposure to global epidemics
This was likely due to the timely containment of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS); had the outbreak occurred in a country less equipped to manage an epidemic of this virulence, it is likely that its health and economic impacts would have been more devastating
The findings of an overreaction have led to concerns that an outbreak exhibiting higher mortality rates could result in a catastrophic impact on the global economy driven by similar behavioral responses causing major economic disruptions
Summary
With growing globalization comes increased exposure to global epidemics. The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak was the first epidemic of the 21st century to pose an international threat, spreading to infect individuals across some 26 countries around the world in a matter of weeks (Wang and Jolly 2004). The concern with exaggerated impacts becomes more troubling when we note that the SARS epidemic is situated within a long-observed increase in the frequency of zoonotic disease emergence events across the globe. The average mortality rate increased with the duration of the epidemic and was higher in the later outbreaks that occurred in Beijing; Hong Kong, China; and Singapore (Figure 1) (Wang and Jolly 2004). The 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Epidemic | 3 poor sanitation facilities at the housing complex (Hung 2003) This supports epidemiology studies, which found the presence of the virus in the stool of infected patients and suggested the possibility of oral–fecal transmission (Lai, Cheng, and Lim 2005; Peiris et al 2003). The high risk of contraction that occurred in hospitals resulted in medical personnel and other hospital patients constituting a significant proportion of overall SARS cases and in some instances, in the spillage of the virus into the wider community outside the hospital (Hung 2003)
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