Human security and public health in Southeast Asia: the SARS outbreak

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is now a global public health threat with many medical, ethical, social, economic, political, and legal implications. (Abdullah et al. 2003) No man is an island. (John Donne) The security of the state is dependent on the security of its individual citizens. If they are not secure, the state is not secure. Traditional, state-dominant, conceptions of security are ill-equipped to provide understanding into the array of security concerns that now confront nation-states. In November 2002, one of these new security concerns, a corona pulmonary virus jumped the species barrier to begin infecting people in southern China. Three months later this virus was unwittingly transmitted from mainland China to Hong Kong. From there it spread rapidly throughout most of Southeast Asia as well as through parts of the Americas and Europe. Now known as the SARS—Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome—virus, it became a major threat to the stability and prosperity of Southeast Asian countries. This article reviews the spread and impact of the SARS virus within Southeast Asia from a human security perspective. It is intended that the utilisation of human security in this instance will not only provide a better understanding of the impact of SARS on regional states but will also advance the conceptualisation of the human security model.