Thursday, April 8, 2010

SARS

SARS is a respiratory disease in humans which is caused by the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV). To date, there has been a pandemic between the months of November 2002 and July 2003, with 8,096 known infected cases and 774 deaths. SARS spread from the Guangdong province of China to rapidly infect individuals around the world within a matter of weeks in early 2003.As of May 2006, the spread of SARS has been fully contained, with the last infected human case seen in June 2003 (disregarding a laboratory induced infection case in 2004). A short-term impact of SARS was that it influenced Singapore's economy. In Singapore, 43 per cent of industry GDP and 17,500 industry jobs were lost. The SARS caused a significant impact on travel and tourism in Singapore in March 2003, lasting for 4 months. A long-term impact is that people learnt from the SARS outbreak and knew how to act if there is another outbreak. This is why the effects of the recent H1N1 outbreak was not as serious as the SARS outbreak.

Bird Flu

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, also known as "bird flu",is a subtype of the Influenza A virus which can cause illness in humans and many other animal species. One strain of HPAI A(H5N1) is spreading globally after first appearing in Asia. According to the FAO Avian Influenza Disease Emergency Situation Update, H5N1 pathogenicity is continuing to gradually rise in endemic areas but the avian influenza disease situation in farmed birds is being held in check by vaccination. On December 21, 2009 the WHO announced a total of 447 human cases which resulted in the deaths of 263. A short term effect is that the economy suffered from costs of illness and death resulting from the virus and the costs associated with public and private efforts to prevent the spread of the virus and its treatment. However, the effects were not as serious as SARS. Economists say the impact of the bird flu virus is more likely to be confined to the poultry industry, which accounts for only a fraction of economic production in the region, with little sign so far of a widespread outbreak affecting other economic sectors such as tourism. A long-term effect is that the virus can go through the placenta of a pregnant woman and infect the fetus. There is evidence that the virus not only affects the lungs, but also throughout the body into the gastrointestinal tract, the brain, liver, and blood cells. This virus weakens the society.

H1N1

Swine influenza (H1N1) is an infection by any one of several types of swine influenza virus. Swine influenza virus (SIV) is any strain of the influenza family of viruses that is endemic in pigs. The first few cases in the 2009 epidemic came from USA and Mexico. It was feared that it will become a major global pandemic but it was overestimated and millions of vaccines and advertising was wasted. Like in the case of SARS, a short term effect is that health-care workers feel traumatized when working in a hospital with H1N1 cases as they risk getting infected, so lesser people would want to be health workers. The outbreak is able to paralyze the tourism industry in Singapore. The virus has appeared just when the global travel industry is ailing. In the present situation, Singapore tourism is definitely going to decline in the tourism industry because of Asia's heightened sensitivity to bird flu and such related flu disease threats. The tourism industry of the most happening tourism destination of Asia that is Singapore will suffer because the health ministries of various countries have advised its citizens to avoid trips to the region where the swine flu outbreak has hit.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Conclusion

These sources stated above are similar as they are all classified under epidemics. Even though epidemics mostly have negative impacts on different aspects of life like economy and society, there are positive impacts. We are able to learn from these past experiences and be more prepared lest there be any future cases like how we adapted from the SARS epidemic.

Bibliography:
http://www.wttc.org/eng/Tourism_News/Press_Releases/Press_Releases_2003/Impact_of_SARS/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/EASTASIAPACIFICEXT/EXTEAPREGTOPHEANUT/0,,contentMDK:20713527~pagePK:34004173~piPK:34003707~theSitePK:503048,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H5N1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swine_flu
http://www.focussingapore.com/singapore-news/swine-flu-outbreak.html