SARS case: reports of a new epidemic have been greatly exaggerated

On 8 September 2003, the authorities in Singapore reported a new case of SARS, over two months after the last new infection had been reported. The infected person is a postgraduate medical student who was working in a building where other workers were studying the virus that has been identified as the cause of SARS. The case raised fears of a decline in tourism, and stockmarkets in East Asia fell.

However, it would seem that this is an entirely isolated case. Even the World Health Organisation (WHO), which never seems afraid to exaggerate a health scare, has suggested there is nothing to worry about. 'The Singapore case is mild, isolated and has not produced secondary cases, and therefore is not regarded as a public health concern', it states. The student concerned doesn't even seem to have some of the main symptoms associated with SARS.

As for the stockmarkets, many analysts have argued that a correction in prices was overdue, and the SARS reports provided an opportunity. Already, prices seem to be recovering.

SARS might make a wider comeback in the future. But the main lesson of the first epidemic was that the panic caused far more harm than the disease. There were fewer than a thousand deaths, despite gloomy predictions of millions succumbing. However, the economic consequences in lost trade and tourism were substantial and reached well beyond the main countries affected.

Now that SARS is better known, and with the authorities on the lookout for new cases, the potential for the disease to do harm is much reduced. But the jittery reaction to even one new case suggests there is still plenty of potential for unwarranted panic.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Singapore, WHO, 10 September 2003