In The News

China Allows UN Agency to Help Fight Illness on Taiwan

Joseph Kahn May 4, 2003
China approved a World Health Organization (WHO) mission to Taiwan, opening up the ‘territory’ to a UN agency for the first time since 1972. As the number of SARS cases in China has continued to rise, so has the international pressure on China to respond more effectively to the SARS epidemic. At this historical juncture when Taiwan is registering a steady increase in SARS related cases, the WHO...

SARS Unmasks a Wider Scandal

Jasper Becker May 2, 2003
Writing from Beijing, Jasper Becker asks what lessons China will take from the Sars crisis? The crisis, he argues, reveals great flaws in the Chinese government's system of management in non-economic areas. "The half-baked reform of China's health system is nothing short of scandalous and the country is now paying for it," he says. "Peasants - who can least afford it -...

More SARS Cases Are Reported; Virus Found to Persist in Patients

Lawrence K. Altman May 2, 2003
More deaths, more new infections in Toronto, and the realization that Sars patients can suffer a relapse capped the bad news about Sars this week. The World Health Organization also reported that countries – including Canada and the US – are being slow about reporting new cases of Sars. New recommendations included treating in isolation patients who test positive for Sars. – YaleGlobal

Sars Gives China a Lesson in Globalization

Frank Ching May 2, 2003
China may have begun opening its economy 20 years ago, but Sars has shown that capitalist economic reforms aren't the only criteria for being part of the global economy. Control of the media is still seen as a basic function and right of the Chinese Communist Party, but it is precisely the party's obsessive control of information that helped fan the spread of Sars after its initial...

Asean to Take Tough Joint Action

Bertha Henson April 30, 2003
SARS is taking its toll on Southeast Asian economies as travel advisories warn businessmen and tourists to steer clear of countries with high numbers of SARS cases. To combat further economic damage, ASEAN leaders convened in an emergency summit in Bangkok to agree on a unified strategy for containing the spread of SARS and reducing the panic that has been caused by it. In the proposal, people...

SARS Is the Spark for a Riot in China

Erik Eckholm April 29, 2003
Frustrated rural Chinese ransacked a junior high school on Sunday in the first reported case of popular protest against Beijing's handling of the Sars epidemic. As this article in the New York Times reports, "More conflict appears possible as China's government – used to treating the public, especially in rural areas, in a highhanded fashion – applies stringent measures to contain...

Glaxo Will Further Cut Prices of AIDS Drugs to Poor Nations

Reed Abelson April 28, 2003
A serious hurdle in the global fight against AIDS has been the price of AIDS drugs, which is unattainably high for most of the disease's victims. Since AIDS disproportionately affects people in poor countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the former price tag of US$1.70 a day for drugs was too high. GlaxoSmithKline is now promising to lower that price to 90 cents, in the hopes that...