One of my favorite books of all time is World War Z by Max Brooks. It's a zombie book, yes, but written from the perspective of ten years after, when people have survived and are being interviewed to share their survival stories. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. Not only is it entertaining and well written, but it's a great vignette into how different societies and types of people respond to crisis, and I find his interpretations highly plausible.

It was written nearly 15 years ago, and was banned in China. The reason was that he based the outbreak there, and his character blamed the chinese government for covering up and lying about the epidemic, concealing it until it got too late. Today, Max Brooks had an article about the banning of his book, and how he based the response off of China's response to SARS. It's very interesting, and I thought you might enjoy it.

TLDR: Disease flourishes when mismanagement, coverups, and a lack of transparency in authoritarian governments allow it to. See also: Lessons from Chernobyl 101

Link to the original article here.