In March 2003, the world learned about Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the threat that it poses to infected individuals. The international transmission of SARS to other countries far beyond China was caused by infected airline passengers, thus highlighting how a virulent disease can disperse rapidly worldwide. Therefore, SARS represents a global public bad and its containment is a global public good (GPG). Criticism has been leveled at Chinese officials for not fully reporting the extent of the outbreak to the World Health Organization (WHO). Intelligence on diseases also represents a GPG that can allow for swift efforts at containment and control that can save lives. Quarantine of diseased persons is both a GPG and a regional public good (RPG) that provides benefit spillovers to recipients depending on their likelihood of coming into contact with those infected. As such, the public good associated with quarantines abides by a weighted-sum aggregation technology where weights relate to some spatial transmission process.

Globalization creates an increased health interdependency worldwide that stems from enhanced transmission pathways for infectious diseases through greater mobility and transfrontier exchanges. Despite the high stakes, there is no overall strategy for promoting worldwide health owing to collective action problems stemming from the need for global participation, lack of awareness, and national protection of autonomy. To date, WHO tries with limited resources to coordinate efforts worldwide. Its actions are bolstered in an ad hoc fashion by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the multilateral institutions, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and a variety of other institutions.