WITH nearly 1.5 billion people, it is understandable that managing health concerns is going to be a large problem. Add to that is the fact the five of the most densely populated cities are also in the country.
While much is made of the efforts and success of the Chinese government reducing poverty over the decades, the health-care system in China has wide disparities and large gaps in serving the public. These gaps are most prominent between urban and rural health care and medical providers.
Since 2006, China has been undertaking the most significant health- care reforms since the Mao era. The health infrastructure in Beijing, Shanghai, and other major cities approach developed-world standards, and are vastly superior compared to those operated in the rural interior. That is one problem. Further, 95 percent of the population has basic health-care insurance, the cost of out-of-pocket expenditures again vary greatly between rural and urban area.
At the beginning of the 21st century, about 80 percent of the health- and medical-care services were concentrated in cities, and medical care was not easily and quickly available to more than 100 million people in rural areas. That has been improved. But even the government has admitted over the years that the primary health services for acute ailments and much lower attention has been given to communicable diseases.
Between November 2002 and July 2003, an outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in southern China caused an eventual 8,098 cases, resulting in 774 deaths reported in 37 countries with about a 10-percent mortality rate.
At the time, the Chinese government was harshly criticized for not being truthful and transparent about the disease and its spread. This led many to believe that the global spread could have been less severe had China admitted to the problem.
Now less than two decades later the world is faced with another SARS-like coronavirus that has the potential to spread rapidly around the globe. The World Health Organization has put the Chinese government on notice: do not make the same mistakes again.
Like SARS, the Wuhan pneumonia cases were linked to a market selling myriad species of live animals, and they appear to be caused by a new member of the coronavirus family closely related to the SARS virus. However, at least initially, China appeared to be less than forthcoming with information. Further, the virus has already stated to mutate and Chinese officials confirmed can be passed from person to person. That is not good news.
Prof. Neil Ferguson, an epidemiology expert at Imperial College London, said the new strain is currently “as deadly as the Spanish flu epidemic.”
China has put the entire city of Wuhan—population of 11 million—on lockdown and quarantine. Bus, subway, ferry and long-distance passenger transportation networks from the city are suspended as city’s airport and train stations are closed to outgoing passengers.
However, once again as during the SARS episode, it is up to our own health officials to protect the Philippines. Already though, the Department of Health reported that a child from China tested positive for coronavirus. The five-year-old from the central Chinese city of Wuhan arrived in Cebu City last January 12th. We must be on guard.