Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
to SarS decisively, china's reaction and that of Indonesia and thailand to avian
influenza showed that Asian regimes differed in their infectious disease control. The
governmental capacity of Singapore and Hong Kong was forced to be strong, due
mostly to their congested nature. In geographically spacious states, such as china
and Indonesia, the problem of localism represents a fundamental obstacle to any fight
against infectious disease. table 5-2 shows that the larger a country, the more relaxed
its approach to public health crises. endowed with a large territory, Prc leaders at
the central and local levels were at first relaxed about the outbreak of SARS, until
it affected other parts of the world and generated international concern. If a regime
is more open toward infectious disease control, it tackles the crisis more effectively.
although Singapore is viewed by some scholars as being an authoritarian polity,
the media scrutiny of Hong Kong's administration and its transparency in reporting the
development of SarS illustrated the government's openness. However, given
the lack of decisiveness and poor coordination by Hong Kong leadership, it was
less effective in infectious disease control than Singapore (see table 5-3). regime
openness in tackling health crises and the size of a state or a city directly determine that
effectiveness. Furthermore, leadership decisiveness and departmental coordination
are both critical to the responsiveness to the outbreak of infectious diseases. overall,
the effectiveness in disease control is shaped by such factors as the size of a state
Table 5-2: Infectious Disease Control, Regime openness, and Size
regime openness in disease control
Size of a state
or city
low degree
High degree
Moderate degree of effectiveness
in disease control
High degree of effectiveness in
infectious disease control (Singapore)
Small
low degree of effectiveness
(People's republic of china)
large
Moderate degree of effectiveness
Table 5-3: Infectious Disease Response, Leadership Decisiveness, and
Departmental Coordination
leadership decisiveness in disease control
Departmental
coordination
low degree
High degree
low degree of responsiveness to
disease outbreak (Hong Kong)
Moderate degree of responsiveness
to disease outbreak
weak
Moderate degree of responsiveness
to disease outbreak
High degree of responsiveness to
disease outbreak (Singapore)
Strong
