Emerging and reemerging infectious diseases have become a burden to the public health system around the world and kill more people than any other single cause (Arias, 2010). With the heightened economic interdependence of countries and increased travel around the world, the emergence of new infections and reemergence of the ones that have occurred before continues to pose a public health challenge. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is different than the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and the economic and non-economic impacts of the recent SARS outbreak on a community.
Background
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Severe Acute Respiratory …show more content…
This quickly progressing viremia proves transmission is possible at about day five of initial infection (Peiris & Guan, 2004). However, in HIV/AIDS, after an initial infection, a person may exhibit an acute mononucleosis-like symptom within a week or two which is self-limited and for which no treatment is provided for (Heymann, 2015) and HIV testing may not be even considered. The body’s immune system often can fight the virus for many years and persons affected will not develop symptoms until the virus has managed to weaken the immune system predisposing the person to opportunistic infections (Avert, …show more content…
The need for isolating cases, testing those suspected to have come in contact with an infected person, and outbreak investigations can have the greatest economic impact. The hospitals may see a drop in revenue due to the community’s fear to utilize healthcare services (Hong-Jen, 2004) as well. The non-economic impact is mainly the community may experience heightened fear and anxiety about the SARS outbreak and often the life-threatening consequences of