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SARS- or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, is now one of the most media exposed diseases in the Asian regions and us far up as North America. It can easily spread and although not fatal to all, a growing number of SARS infected patients are dying. Health agencies have tried to contain and eradicate SARS but are still deep into the battle. The media has also joined in the fight to inform the public to help prevent the spread of SARS. Info campaigns both in broadcast and in print have been bombarding the public on how to identify and hopefully prevent the spread of SARS.

But with all its intentions to be good, the media may have inadvertently created a new, more menacing disease; anxiety. Anxiety in the public towards SARS has created panic buying, ruined tourism and caused delays and cancellations of business deals. Countries in the Asian region that depend on tourism are especially hard hit. SARS is very contagious and warrants media attention, but how much attention is the crux of the problem. When does an information campaign become fuel for a public fear about an epidemic that already kills?

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Guidelines for Media Practitioners and Advertisers Concerning SARS

More to worry about than SARS
At Large
Rina Jimenez David-
©2003 www.inq7.net all rights reserved, May 1, 2003

If this paper were to run a banner headline tomorrow proclaiming that 75 Filipinos had died of tuberculosis (TB) in a single day, we would probably be laughed out of the industry.

After all, tuberculosis is no longer the stuff of news-it's "old hat"-and the last prominent Filipino to have died of it was president Manuel L. Quezon.

And yet TB is still very much part of our national reality. To this day, 75 Filipinos die of TB every day. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) says the Philippines bears the "highest tuberculosis burden" of all countries in the Western Pacific region. With 30 million Filipinos infected with TB, that means about 32 percent of the population currently lives with the threat of TB. And since TB is an infectious disease, then family members of those 30 million are also considered at risk of acquiring the disease. TB is so much a part of Filipino life that not even material wealth and comfort and the highest standards of health care can protect a Filipino family from it. Why else, for instance, are anti-TB vaccinations considered routine for all Filipino babies when in developed countries the disease is virtually unknown? Why is "primary complex," the early stage of lung weakness that signals the onset of TB, considered almost routine here?

The awful truth is that TB is so prevalent in this country that children can pick it up from almost anyone: their playmates, their nursemaids and other household help, and even from jeepney drivers and teachers, two groups where TB is especially prevalent. True, conscientious, health-conscious parents can ask all household members to get health clearances and present chest X-rays before they're employed, but can they ask everyone their children meet to present sputum samples as well?
To ensure our children and loved ones are completely safe from TB, we need to make sure that our communities are likewise completely TB-free.

* * * *

BUT as I said earlier, who cares about TB, right? It's an old disease, so much a part of our health landscape it blends right in with the scenery. No matter that 75 Filipinos die of TB every day.
In contrast, how many Filipinos in the Philippines have died of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)? By last count, two, and only one, the father of Adela Catalon, the nursing aide who must have picked up the virus in Canada, was infected locally, and by his daughter at that.

Sen. Juan Flavier, a former health secretary, understands the implications to the country should SARS erupt into a full-blown epidemic as it seems to have in China and Hong Kong. He urges the Macapagal-Arroyo administration to act as if the entry of SARS into the country were a foregone conclusion, and to institute measures such as mandatory quarantine for arriving as well as departing overseas workers, to assure foreign employers that our workers are SARS-free.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, on her way to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit on SARS in Bangkok, sounded determined to eradicate the threat of SARS in the country. She spoke about strengthening the country's border controls, especially on arriving tourists, business folk and overseas workers. Earlier, she had also released one billion pesos to the Department of Health for anti-SARS measures.
Of course, it makes sense to be alarmed about SARS, since it stands a great chance of killing a great number of Filipinos, given our overall health situation, especially the widespread and endemic nature of many infectious diseases already killing so many Filipinos.
My only worry about all this fuss being raised about SARS is that in the hysteria of containing this disease, we may end up taking money away from programs meant to address diseases like TB, which already constitute a great threat to the health and lives of Filipinos.

* * * *

TB is not the only infectious disease that poses a challenge to our health professionals, policy-makers and politicians.
According to USAID figures, 66 of the country's 79 provinces are considered endemic for malaria. Infections are widespread in rural areas, with some localities registering 40-60 percent malaria infection rates. A patient's chances of dying from dengue are also much higher than from SARS, with dengue outbreaks and epidemics exploding on the scene every two or three years in urban areas.

And while the Philippines has so far succeeded in containing the spread of HIV/AIDS, with less than 3 percent infection rates among high-risk groups (considered the threshold beyond which HIV is said to have infected the "general population), we still cannot afford to be complacent against HIV/AIDS given our active sex industry and the sizeable number who use illegal drugs through injection.
Should SARS afflict the country on top of our already heavy burden of infectious diseases, it could very well break the back of our health system even as it raises the death toll considerably.

http://www.inq7.net/opi/2003/may/01/opi_rjdavid-1.htm

Were SARS photos worth the risk?
Reader's Advocate
Raul Palabrica - ©2003
www.inq7.net all rights reserved, April 28, 2002
http://www.inq7.net/opi/2003/apr/28/opi_rjpalabrica-1.htm

LAST April 23, the Inquirer published on its front page a photo of the road leading to the barangay (village) in Alcala town, Pangasinan province where Adela Catalon stayed for several days before she succumbed to what the World Health Organization believes to have been a case of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

The following day, the newspaper carried an account of the photographer who took that picture, Val Handumon, on how some people in Tarlac shooed him away when they learned that he had been to Catalon's barangay.

That photo mission drew sharp criticism from reader Mybelle GoBio. She said she "does not feel any sympathy at all toward him. I think he and the Inquirer should be more responsible! The town was put in isolation for the purpose of preventing any spread of SARS in the event Ms Catalon inadvertently spread the SARS virus.
"By sending him there and letting him interact with the 'isolated people,' the Inquirer just succeeded in making the preventive measure a failure! Mr. Handumon should stay home and go into voluntary isolation as well!!! SARS is no joke and everybody should be more careful and cooperate with the government's efforts to prevent or minimize the spread of SARS here. How can true isolation be implemented if there are people who can freely interact with 'isolated people' then move on to another town to again interact with other folks?"

This is not the first time the Inquirer had an encounter with the dreaded virus. A month ago, one of its reporters went to China to cover the inauguration of an exhibit on Philippine-made goods and products. Upon his return, he went on voluntary quarantine. Ten days later, he emerged from isolation without showing any of the symptoms that characterize the SARS illness.
Was it necessary for the newspaper to send a photographer to Catalon's barangay? Yes, said the editor in chief. She believes the value of the news reports on the quarantine of the residents would be enhanced if pictures accompanied them.

She conceded the photographer took a risk in entering the area. But she considers that one of the hazards of photojournalism. It's similar to the dangers that photographers brave when they accompany soldiers in military missions or take photos of armed conflicts from the side of the rebel groups.

I share the reader's concern that the Inquirer was rather overzealous in the pursuit of the news when its photographer ventured into that place. Oh, what journalists would do just to get a scoop, even to the extent of putting themselves and their loved ones in harm's way. Perhaps, there were other ways of taking the photos without breaking the ordered isolation, like from the air.

If it's any consolation to those who question the wisdom of the photo mission, the photographer did not touch anything or talk to anyone in the place. He was conscious of possible contamination so he made sure he was not within "spitting distance" of anybody. All the shots he took were from afar and there was no possibility of droplets from the mouths or noses of the residents hitting any part of his body.