Effectively Controlling Infectious Disease Outbreaks

EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No.17

Summary

In the aftermath of the SARS epidemic much was made of China’s effective efforts at disease control and prevention. China’s perceived success in controlling SARS stands in stark contrast with Taiwan’s troubled response to its own SARS outbreak. Why does Taiwan, a geographically small, yet densely populated country with a democratic government, wealthy and modern knowledge-based economy, fail to effectively respond to SARS whereas big, heavily populated, relatively under-developed and soft authoritarian China succeeds? To address this question, I focus on disease control efforts in Taiwan, considering relevant parallels in Chinese infectious disease control to draw out the causes for Taiwan’s poor infectious disease response. I use the SARS epidemic as a case study, comparing specific policies and actions taken by Taiwan and China in response to their respective SARS outbreaks. As I am particularly interested in understanding the factors influencing Taiwan’s response, I focus initially on Taiwan, describing the genesis of SARS in Taiwan and its infectious disease response capacity. I then draw on previous studies of China’s SARS response to highlight the differences between the Chinese and Taiwanese SARS responses. In the final section I draw on this comparison to identify broader lessons regarding factors influencing effective infectious disease response.

Author

Jonathan Schwartz, Assistant Professor of Department of Political Science and International Relations, the State University of New York, New Paltz

This working paper is submitted to the "EAI Fellows Program on Peace, Governance, and Development in East Asia" and is distributed in electronic version only. The EAI Fellows Program is supported by the Kuomintang Foundation of Taiwan and the Henry Luce Foundation of the United States.

In the aftermath of the SARS epidemic much was made of China’s effective efforts at disease control and prevention. China’s perceived success in controlling SARS stands in stark contrast with Taiwan’s troubled response to its own SARS outbreak. Why does Taiwan, a geographically small, yet densely populated country with a democratic government, wealthy and modern knowledge-based economy, fail to effectively respond to SARS whereas big, heavily populated, relatively under-developed and soft authoritarian China succeeds?

To address this question, I focus on disease control efforts in Taiwan, considering relevant parallels in Chinese infectious disease control to draw out the causes for Taiwan’s poor infectious disease response. I use the SARS epidemic as a case study, comparing specific policies and actions taken by Taiwan and China in response to their respective SARS outbreaks.

As I am particularly interested in understanding the factors influencing Taiwan’s response, I focus initially on Taiwan, describing the genesis of SARS in Taiwan and its infectious disease response capacity. I then draw on previous studies of China’s SARS response to highlight the differences between the Chinese and Taiwanese SARS responses. In the final section I draw on this comparison to identify broader lessons regarding factors influencing effective infectious disease response.