SARS measures too late [in China]

So African News ^ | 24 April 2003

[flamefront]

Beijing - China's drastic measures designed to curb Sars have likely come too late to prevent the epidemic from threatening virtually all the country's 1.3 billion people, according to analysts.

A decision to cancel the week-long May Day holidays to keep people from travelling will also have little effect since the virus has probably already spread to all corners of the continent-sized country, they said.

"It's too late, they can't put the genie back in the bottle," said Andrew Thompson, an expert on Chinese health issues at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"It's got to be everywhere by now, and if it isn't, it will soon be there," he said.

So far, 14 of China's 31 municipalities and provinces have reported Sars cases.

Lack of clarity

The most chilling aspect for many in China is the lack of clarity about the extent of severe acute respiratory syndrome.

The government has reported more than 1 800 confirmed cases nationwide, and at least 80 deaths, but few believe the statistics are complete.

Even Beijing seems to lack faith in the data it gets from the provinces, dispatching special investigative teams to detect under-reporting or cover-ups.

In the provinces, too, doctors only have partial ideas about what is going on in their immediate neighbourhood.

In Qingxu County, a part of north China particularly badly hit with up to five Sars deaths, doctors at the People's Hospital have not had contact with their patients for days.

"People are scared to come here because of the Sars cases we've had," said a female doctor surnamed You. "So they go to small rural clinics instead."

Showing the potential damage Sars can wreak, tuberculosis which spreads in much the same way, has infected 4.5 million people in China, according to official statistics.

Rapid spread

The rapid spread of Sars has only been possible because China now, after 20 years of reform, is a freer society than anytime previously in history.

Chinese travel longer and more frequently than ever before, ensuring that new strands of virus inevitably get a free ride to all habitable parts of the country.

The biggest contribution to the spread of novel diseases is made by China's 94 million migrant workers who hail from the countryside and seek work in places like Beijing and Guangzhou.

When they return home for major holidays - like the just-cancelled May Day vacation - they introduce not only new big-city fashions and habits, but occasionally also previously unknown diseases.

The result, as Sars reaches rural China this way, is likely to be disastrous, by the health ministry's own admission.

Grim picture

"Rural medical facilities are relatively weak, and the awareness among farmers of self-protection is generally not as high as in the cities," Vice Health Minister Gao Qian said at a briefing on Sunday.

"So once the disaster spreads to these areas, the consequences will be especially grim," he said.

Illustrating the problems of the countryside, more than 60 percent of rural tuberculosis patients leave hospital before fully recovering because they cannot afford to pay for treatment.

The danger of a significantly higher death toll will come if or when Sars starts affecting parts of China already struggling with other widespread and lethal diseases, according to experts.

Tuberculosis patients are more drug-resistant, meaning that it will be much harder to cure them of Sars.

And impoverished Henan province, where two Sars cases have now been reported, is also the home of thousands of rural dwellers who had their immune defences weakened by HIV.

"As it spreads in Henan, it will get much, much worse," said Thompson. "The mortality rate will rise to much more than four percent."

[flamefront]

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[DB]

This has the potential to make AIDS look like a day at the park. If it isn't contained now, many millions will die short of a medical break through for the common cold.

[Judith Anne]

Very grim news for the US in this article.

[Ma Li]

Lest anyone think the new "upfront" attitude in China is true, let me tell you that they are still sticking to their story that there is no SARS in the province where I live.

However, last week, the schools here got detailed papers for each student and teacher about how to wash hands and use soap. It was to protect them "from all kinds of diseases."

Then, today, the police came by the foreigners homes with rags and bottles of disinfectant, and disinfected everything.

And they couln't hide from everything the fact that the train station was closed for two hours. Why? Railway workers are saying a man stepped off a train arriving from Guang Dong province and died on the platform, presumably from SARS. Despite all this, the line remains the same.

Too late? Probably.

[goldstategop]

Its threatening the once unchallenged power of China's Communist Party. A simple illness no less. But such is the nature of new diseases to reshape the sweep and flow of human history.

[Cronos]

The chicoms are threatening the entire world's safety with their waffling. Unless this entire SARS thing is a chicom biiological weapon that kind of got misplaced and escaped from their labs.

[goldstategop]

A regime based on lies and bloodshed will eventually meet its end. SARS could do to Chinese Communism what the pro-democracy demonstrators in Tianamen square never could do: bring about its downfall from power.

[CathyRyan]

Thank you for your posts! Welcome to Free Republic! Are there any site would would like a link to today?

[Ma Li]

They are. But that doesn't bother them as much as losing face. They haven't much of any respect for life. I've had people tell me they love the motherland, and would be happy if they died, because the motherland has too many people anyway and doesn't need them. When the twin towers fell, after a suitable time to be respectful to me, I had several people here ask me why Americans were "so upset...No one important died, did they?" (You know, like government officials or army cadres).

[Ma Li]

Thanks for the warm welcome! Any articles anyone finds that give information about China--especially right now about SARS, naturally, would be great. Taiwan, Singapore, Japan have good insights into the truth of what's going on here, sometimes, and any US mainstream media with interesting sights.

Thanks!

[tuna_battle_slight_return]

A friend of mine is going to China this week, to visit his son, and is insisting SARS is an STD, i.e., something that can only be caught from sexual relations.

I haven't heard of any kids under 14 or so that have SARS so it would make sense that SARS is an STD, but I don't know for sure. Pardon my potential, if not cemented, ignorance.

[aristeides]

SARS victim rode jammed GO Trains: Health officials urge nearby riders to put themselves into quarantine.

[aristeides]

Complex Problem: Hong Kong housing project home to 300-plus SARS cases.

[Dark Wing]

This is what you expected.

[FrogMom]

If you run conservative figures, this thing could kill 540 million people.

[DB]

There would have to be 13.5 billion people that got infected on the planet at a 4% death rate to kill 540 million people.

[DB]

Scary stuff. Stay safe.

[gridlock]

If you run conservative figures, this thing could kill 540 million people.

Well, of course. But we wouldn't want to embarrass the Chinese!

[reformedliberal]

Think about how small the world is today. I live in a rural midwestern county. I have come in contact w/people who work in Hong Kong (investment banker on vacation) and in mainland China (oil company workers who maintain residence and have family here). Relatives in a nearby urban area are senior med staff, one of whom works extensively w/immigrants. Another relative travels frequently to Asia and to Europe on business.

I don't think a pandemic is far fetched and I think it will happen quickly compared to previous ones. OTOH, I will bet that existant research into cold vaccines is becoming intense. However, this virus evidently mutates quickly, so I don't see how a vaccine can stop it.

[DB]

I agree.

I wonder if any of the recent cold medications that reduce the severity/duration have any affect on it. Just a small reduction in its severity could save a lot of lives.