Eurasia Review
13 May 2014
- RSIS
- Media Mentions
- MERS Alert and Polio Redux: Greater Vigilance Critical – Analysis
MERS Alert and Polio Redux: Greater Vigilance Critical – Analysis
The spread of the MERS and the re-emergence of the wild polio virus are troubling developments. These health risks should renew calls for closer regional and global cooperation on health security.
THE RECENT news about the spread of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-COV) beyond the Middle East has raised concern about the possible repeat of a global health crisis like the Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus in 2003. Despite the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) advisory that the MERS transmission pattern is slow and limited, and is no cause for alarm, reports of new cases have not allayed worries about its implications on global health security.
Adding to these concerns are the unexpected news about the re-emergence of polio—once thought to have been eradicated — and the increasing vulnerability of communities to antimicrobial resistance.
These developments have, once again, brought to the fore the critical importance of continued disease surveillance, information sharing, and risk communication to manage health threats in an increasingly interconnected world.
… Mely Caballero-Anthony and Gianna Gayle Amul are, respectively, Head of the Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies and Senior Analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University.
RSIS / NTS Centre / GPO / Online
