Just two years after the SARS outbreak sent Asian economies into intensive care, companies across the region are bracing themselves for the vastly more malignant threat of a bird-flu pandemic.
The SARS crisis of 2003 killed about 800 people out of 8,000 cases and cost regional economies an estimated US$18 billion, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The hardest hit were Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan and Malaysia. Travel-related industries were the most severely affected by the disease, which was spread by air passengers from China and Hong Kong.
But an avian-flu pandemic has the potential to kill millions worldwide and affect all economic sectors.
The ADB says in the Asia-Pacific region alone, the economic cost of a bird flu pandemic could exceed US$250 billion.
At the moment, the World Health Organization (WHO) says the bird flu threat is still in the third of six phases, with over 60 deaths recorded in Asia since 2003 and rare instances of suspected human-to-human infection.
Phase 6 is the doomsday scenario -- the full pandemic phase with sustained human-to-human infection in the general population.
"Phase 3, where we are now, is kind of the warning phase. It's out there, we know it's out there, we really have to pay attention. We have to plan," said Jeffrey Staples, senior medical adviser to emergency services firm International SOS.
"My guess is that at Phase 5, governments will probably impose international travel restrictions," he said in an interview.
"So what this gives us is a window of opportunity whereby we can consider moving people around in Phase 4," he said, referring to the possibility of relocating expatriate corporate staff out of affected countries.
"Phase 3 is probably too early to move people, but it's not too early to think and to start planning in a holistic way," he said.
With the virus now confirmed to have spread into Europe, companies across Asia are preparing emergency plans for a pandemic which is widely assumed to be only a matter of time.
Contingency measures ranging from free Vitamin C pills for workers and taking poultry off the canteen menu, to costly evacuation plans for expatriate staff and their families are being drafted by companies.
Nestle Malaysia said it was in the process of drafting a bird-flu contingency plan, with guidance from local authorities and its headquarters in Switzerland.
In China, Charles Zhang, public relations manager of Procter and Gamble in Guangzhou Province, said all staff had been urged to "pay attention to their personal health and bird-flu prevention measures."
P&G, which has 5,000 employees in China, 1 percent of them expatriates, is not stockpiling masks or shoe gloves and so far has no alternate plans for transport in case supply chains become bottled up.
There are no evacuation plans at the moment. Neither does the group have any stocks of anti-viral drug Tamiflu because in China, people needed to go to hospitals and get prescriptions from doctors, Zhang said.
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
RSS