Judy Siu saw the medical and financial damage caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic and now she’s counting the social and cultural fallout.
The anthropologist was in Hong Kong at the height of the SARS outbreak in 2003 which killed 299 people and infected about 1800 in Hong Kong.
She is now completing a PhD with The University of Queensland’s (UQ) School of Population Health on SARS to show how epidemics cause social inequality.
Ms Siu said social groups were stigmatised and discriminated against during the SARS panic, partly because the public wanted a scapegoat.
She said SARS patients were rejected from public places, fired from their jobs after their addresses were announced publicly and suspected carriers in outbreak areas were put into isolation camps.
Disinfectant was thrown into infected neighbours’ homes and health workers were encouraged to stay in hospitals to prevent further spreads.
Ms Siu said she believed some government bodies, the World Health Organisation, mass media and general public, had been too alarmist.
She said the media was saturated with sensational SARS stories and the Government blamed one suburban SARS outbreak on a kidney disease patient because the person could carry large amounts of the virus.
“The mass media responded by using ‘super virus spreaders’ to depict these chronically-ill patients and ‘hidden spreaders’ to depict the elderly,” Ms Siu said.
“Understanding the human responses towards epidemics can help authorities design a better public health policy.
“Discrimination and stigmatization could motivate someone like a SARS victims to conceal their health status from others.”
Ms Siu is reviewing news footage about the outbreak and interviewing recovering SARS patients, help groups for chronically-ill and kidney disease patients, healthcare workers, reporters, Chinese medicine experts and members of the public.
The 26-year-old also hopes to visit Hong Kong hospitals during her one year of fieldwork to see how SARS has changed infection control policies.
UQ, based in Brisbane, Australia, is Queensland`s oldest and largest University which consistently ranks as one of Australia`s most outstanding research and teaching and learning universities.
Media: Ms Siu (+852 9674 0984 mobile, +852 2609 7663 The Chinese University of Hong Kong Anthropology, judysiu@alumni.cuhk.edu.hk) or Miguel Holland at UQ Communications (+61 7 3365 2619, m.holland@uq.edu.au)
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