Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
aIDS in their own right. and neo-liberal paradigms privileging economic theories
and value have long guided the response to medicines for HIv/aIDS and tobacco
control, as emphasised by cohen-Kohler and by collin and lee.
Targets
the centrality of state actors and their repertoires means that most responses are
still largely targeted at the borders of the territory that these sovereigns fully control,
or within that territory itself. these states are asked to conduct surveillance and
voluntarily provide information to those abroad. the instruments of quarantine and
isolation were deployed against SarS, with the latter producing stigma as a side
effect. Hong Kong used coercive regulation, slaughtering all its poultry within three
days with little regard for animal rights. efforts to generate national stockpiles of
drugs for a strategic medicine reserve to protect a domestic population is a dominant
response to avian influenza, even if the drugs can be rendered ineffective against
the challenge of a rapidly mutating disease. and even rotary International, with
its global network of volunteers, was impeded in its effort to eradicate polio by the
actions of the nigerian state.
Defence at the border is also a preferred target as threatened states instinctively
move to construct a medical Maginot line. Several states installed temperature sensors
at airports to detect SarS. outside actors similarly seek to seal off the borders of an
infected state. Huang notes the fear that countries will hoard their national stockpiles
of influenza vaccines through export bans when the pandemic strikes. Such a fear has
already led Indonesia to threaten to hoard its own national avian influenza samples
until it receives assurances that those that hold the resulting vaccines abroad will share
the medicines and technology. as Price-Smith and Huang indicate, SarS gave rise
to calls to suspend all travel links with china, and 100 of its 164 diplomatic partners
actually did to some degree. the wHo imposed a travel advisory on toronto. Its
International Health regulations (IHr) also target borders as a key line of defence.
Defence in depth in the distant locations where the challenges first arise remains
all too rare a response. the instrument of ODA, confined by state sovereignty, tends
to be funnelled indirectly through intergovernmental organisations and national
governments, with the many stages and opportunities for slippage that such a
circuitous route entails. Its use for local infrastructure or salaries can be prohibited.
Despite measures such as the training of vietnamese technicians in laboratories
in canada, as described by bennett, there is little desire to build capacity in the
developing world, where a lack of basic healthcare systems and services allows
pathogens to spread easily.
Processes
Perhaps most importantly, the process of response seldom shows high degrees
of comprehensiveness, communication, cooperation, coordination, coherence,
compliance, and capacity.
