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Singapore, Feb 24: Last week Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry revised their 2020 GDP growth projections downwards to -0.5 to 1.5 per cent, confirming fears of economic fallout from the coronavirus COVID-19. Just three days earlier, while visiting Changi Airport, the Prime Minister told the media that the country is bracing for a significant hit on the economy and the possibility of a recession.

In the budget announcement on February 18, various measures to help affected companies were announced.

This included a jobs support scheme to help companies retain workers that will see the government offset 8 per cent of wages up to SGD3,600(USD2,600) per worker, per month, for a three-month period. Companies will also get a 25 per cent rebate on their taxes for the year capped at SGD15,000 (USD10,800) per company.

There will be additional support for sectors directly affected by the virus outbreak such as tourism, aviation and retail. Qualifying companies will be given property tax rebates and can apply for temporary bridging loans to ease cash flow. Rebates will be offered on aircraft landing and parking charges as well as rental rebates for shops and cargo agents at Changi Airport.

Overall, the economic package will cost Singapore some USD 4.6 billion, well in excess of the USD 500 million some analysts had predicted. The resulting spending plan including the virus economic package will see a budget deficit of SGD 10.9 billion or 2.1 per cent of GDP, the highest since the Asian financial crisis of 1997.

It is hoped that with financial support, companies in Singapore will not only be able to ride through the current rough patch but be able to position themselves better to take off once the economic crisis brought upon by the contagion is over.

Which then are the Singapore companies that can potentially ride out the current storm and emerge stronger?

Aviation and hospitality firms are among those most impacted by the virus outbreak and Singapore Airlines (SIA) comes to mind. SIA is a well-run company but has seen its share price fall about 5.2 percent since the beginning of the year. In the short term, revenue and profits will no doubt be affected but it will recover in the long run.

Hospitality sector companies like Ascott Residence whose main sponsor is Capitaland, Southeast Asia's largest landlord, and CDL Hospitality, have seen 1.5 and 5.5 percent (respectively) shaved off their share prices since the start of the year.

In reporting financial results for the quarter which ended in December on February 14, Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang said that due to the virus, they are seeing large changes in buying patterns. With widespread home confinement, there is a growing demand for delivery services including online food and grocery delivery, as well as office apps and streaming entertainment.

Similarly, in Singapore, with more people staying and working from home, the three main food delivery services, Grab Food, Foodpanda and Deliveroo, are doing roaring business. All three are privately held.

In late January, as the scale of the outbreak became more apparent, investors began pouring money into health-product firms in Asia that they think will benefit from the virus outbreak.

Bloomberg reported that when Chinese pharmaceutical companies like Da An Gene Co, Xilong Scientific and Shanghai Kehua Bio-Engineering said they have developed kits for detecting the virus, their stocks soared to hit the 10 per cent daily limit. Firms manufacturing protection gear and air-cleaning equipment climbed more than 10 per cent in Japan, while Malaysian rubber gloves producers climbed at least 5 per cent.

Naturally, many would view that pharmaceutical companies that have the technology and expertise to develop drugs to treat patients with the virus or are able to develop a vaccine, would stand to benefit from the coronavirus outbreak.

Firms like and Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, MSD, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Sanofi are the pharmaceutical behemoths that dominate the global vaccine market.

However, industry experts speaking to the BBC warned that a pot of gold is not necessarily waiting for any company that successfully develops a vaccine. Although the global vaccine market is expected to grow to USD60 billion this year, it is costly and time-consuming to develop and pass it through for use by the general public.

It is also unclear if Indian pharmaceutical firms will be able to benefit from the demand for medicines that can treat or prevent the virus.

India is the world's largest manufacturer of generic drugs and it supplies 20 percent of the world's drugs by volume. However, it sources 70 percent of its raw material from China. If supplies are disrupted beyond a month to a month and a half, they may see a slow-down in production. According to a CNN report, the companies that are most impacted by material shortages are GSK India, Pfizer (PFE) and Cipla. Other companies like Aurobindo Pharma, Cadila Healthcare and Sun Pharma are said to be carefully monitoring the situation.

There is no evidence that the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, which is primarily used against tuberculosis, protects people against infection with the novel coronavirus, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

The WHO therefore didn't recommend BCG vaccination for the prevention of COVID-19 in the absence of evidence, according to its daily situation report on Monday, Xinhua news agency reported.

"There is experimental evidence from both animal and human studies that the BCG vaccine has non-specific effects on the immune system. These effects have not been well characterized and their clinical relevance remains unknown," WHO stated.

Two clinical trials addressing the question are underway, and WHO will evaluate the evidence when it is available, it noted.

BCG vaccination prevents severe forms of tuberculosis in children and diversion of local supplies may result in an increase of disease and deaths from the tuberculosis, it warned.

Researchers have found that patients with peripheral artery disease or stroke were less likely to receive recommended treatments to prevent heart attack than those with coronary artery disease. All three are types of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

Depending on the location of the blockage, atherosclerosis increases the risk for three serious conditions: coronary artery disease, stroke and peripheral artery disease.

"Our study highlights the need for public health campaigns to direct equal attention to all three major forms of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease," said senior study author Erin Michos from the Johns Hopkins University in the US.

"We need to generate awareness among both clinicians and patients that all of these diseases should be treated with aggressive secondary preventive medications, including aspirin and statins, regardless of whether people have heart disease or not," Michos added.

Since atherosclerosis can affect arteries in more than one part of the body, medical guidelines are to treat coronary artery disease, stroke and peripheral artery disease similarly with lifestyle changes and medication, including statins to lower cholesterol levels and aspirin to prevent blood clots.

Lifestyle changes include eating a healthy diet, being physically active, quitting smoking, controlling high cholesterol, controlling high blood pressure, treating high blood sugar and losing weight.

What was unclear was if people with stroke and peripheral artery disease received the same treatments prescribed for those with coronary artery disease.

This study compared more than 14,000 US adults enrolled in the 2006-2015 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, a national survey of patient-reported health outcomes and conditions, and health care use and expenses.

Slightly more than half of the patients were men, the average age was 65, and all had either coronary artery disease, stroke or peripheral artery disease.

These individuals were the representative of nearly 16 million US adults living with one of the three forms of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

Compared to participants with coronary artery disease, participants with peripheral artery disease were twice more likely to report no statin use and three times more likely to report no aspirin use.

Additionally, people with peripheral artery disease had the highest, annual, total out-of-pocket expenditures among the three atherosclerotic conditions.

The findings showed that participants with stroke were more than twice as likely to report no statin or aspirin use.

Moreover, those with stroke were more likely to report poor patient-provider communication, poor health care satisfaction and more emergency room visits.

"Our study highlights a missed opportunity for implementing life-saving preventive medications among these high-risk individuals," Michos said.

The study was presented in the virtual conference at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care & Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2020.