Another 'killer bug'
I wrote this piece for
spiked's
Don't panic page.
'Airline passengers spread mystery killer bug', said The Times (London) on 17 March 2003. 'A mysterious deadly type of pneumonia is travelling the world by airliner and there is no known cure.' The World Health Organisation (WHO) issued an alert about the new, flu-like respiratory disease on 15 March, at which stage there had been around 150 cases of the illness and possibly nine deaths. Most cases have been in China and Vietnam, or in patients related to those countries. WHO director general Gro Harlem Brundtland says: 'This syndrome, SARS [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome], is now a worldwide health threat. The world needs to work together to find its cause, cure the sick, and stop its spread.' Air travel is suspected to be one route of transmission, and air passengers in Hong Kong and Taiwan have been pictured wearing face masks.
However, the numbers affected by the illness are still tiny. In Hong Kong, there have been three deaths in a population of 6.8million people. The disease may not be curable but it is clearly not usually fatal, either. It is not especially contagious. Professor John Oxford of Queen Mary's College, London, told the BBC, 'It is rather slow-moving, rather restricted to families and hospitals, not a rip-roaring affair, but still very nasty.... I wouldn't expect there to be a massive outbreak in other parts of the world.' Nor is it particularly new - there was an outbreak in November 2002 in the same region, and a similar infection in Holland in the same year.
This is just the latest in a long line of weird and wonderful illnesses to briefly burst on to the front pages, only to disappear just as rapidly: remember Ebola virus, MRSA and necrotising fasciitis? All of these diseases are nasty, but they affect relatively few people. The fact that such stories can gain currency is indicative of a time when we feel isolated and powerless, unable to put risks into proper perspective - a mood that is exacerbated by thoughts of war and terrorism. Infectious disease is not quite a thing of the past, but our ability to identify, contain and treat such illness makes it a relatively minor threat. What is more of a threat is our loss of faith in our ability to deal with such problems.
Read:
HK doctors 'identify killer disease', BBC News, 19 March 2003
UK man may have 'mystery illness', BBC News, 17 March 2003