非典的启示与中国疾控系统的建立.pdf

KleinmanWatson.qxd 7/18/05 8:50 AM Page 53 chapter three SARS and China’s Health-Care Response Better to Be Both Red and Expert! joan kaufman The SARS epidemic of 2002–2003 was a wake-up call to the world about the threat of new, emerging infectious diseases. Ironically, SARS, a deadly atypical pneumonia from southern China, emerged around the same time that the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., issued Microbial Threats to Health: Emer- gence, Detection, Response, a report noting that “in the highly inter-con- nected and readily traversed ‘global village’ of our time, one nation’s problems soon become every nation’s problems.”1 The rapid global re- sponse to SARS was impressive and fortunately succeeded in averting a catastrophic pandemic. Post-9/11 investments in global health-informa- tion systems, surveillance, and rapid response alerted the world to a new epidemic at the end of 2002. Travel bans and bold action by the World Health Organization (WHO) limited spread of SARS. International sci- entific collaboration helped define the virus and sequence its genome. Strategies for infection control, as well as therapeutic information were shared worldwide.2 Set against this impressive show of global cooperation are the events that unfolded in China from November 2002, when the outbreak began, to the summer of 2003 when, to the surprise and relief of the interna- tional community, the WHO declared China SARS-free. Th