SARS exposes China's health care

Boston Globe ^ | June 1, 2003 | Indira A.R. Lakshmanan

[sarcasm]

HAHUKOU, China - For 900 million Chinese peasants, a white curtain with a red cross is the first line of defense against SARS.

In this village on the border between the two rural provinces worst hit by the deadly illness, the curtain leads to a cement-floored room where a kindly couple eat, sleep, and offer basic antibiotics, cough drops, injections, and intravenous drips. Like countless others across China's vast hinterland, this bare-bones health center in a village of 500 people has neither a trained staff nor resources to cope with a contagious, sometimes fatal disease.

[Judith Anne]

bump to myself.

[Judith Anne]

There is a lot of publicity going out about how China has overcome its SARS problem, case numbers are declining, no new deaths, etc.

Honestly, I don't know that the publicity is believable. Is there anyone who can assess those claims for accuracy?

[Dog Gone]

I suppose it's possible that China has prevented the spread of SARS in the rural provinces. We've seen repeated reports of these roadblocks and health checks for travellers. It's as if each town has declared a limited quarantine.

What is clear is that if SARS spreads in a city served by these pathetic clinics, there will be no isolation rooms, and little medical attention. Their only hope is prevention, and they appear to be doing the best that they can.

[Judith Anne]

See the new posted article "New SARS disaster looms in Beijing at

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/921712/posts

[blam]

SARS bump.