AFRO-NETS> The SARS farce?

[Claudio SChuftan <aviva@netnam.vn>]

The SARS farce?
---------------

SARS, Wars and the FARCE
By Satya Sagar

The depression hits me on a warm and humid Bangkok evening. I am just 
through with dinner in the city's crowded Sukhumvit business dis-
trict, my head full of the War on Iraq and I spot these people- with 
masks on their faces.

A couple of weeks ago anybody with a cloth covering his face in this 
city would have been branded a 'jihadi' a possible Arab/Muslim/dark 
skinned/dark intentioned 'terrorist'. The city has been on alert well 
before the war on Iraq started to prevent `Arab looking' people from 
doing bad things- for eg., looking Arab.

Just around the time of the Anglo-American attack on Iraq, if there 
were to be an 'Arab' behind a mask in Bangkok - the entire city would 
have been evacuated.

Apparently, not anymore. Respectable people wear masks now in Thai-
land, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong. In fact mandatory they say to 
save yourself from SARS - the flu-like virus that has much of south-
east Asia in deep panic. Tourists are canceling their trips in 
droves, schools are closing down, economies plunging, governments in 
crisis and the Chinese- oh those 'super-contaminating Chinese'- are 
being spurned everywhere.

Suddenly, an irrational panic grips me. God- there is no escape. If 
the Apostles of Armageddon running the White House do not get you 
some mysterious malevolent microbes will. For a fleeting moment, a 
deep frozen moment, I lose hope. We are finished. They will get us 
one way or the other.

This is what the new/OLD colonial world order is going to be all 
about - complete helplessness for us common citizens. Caught between 
SARS and THEIR Wars the only safe place is soon going to be - you 
guessed right - on planet Mars.

Yes, the people I saw wearing those masks have a right to protect 
themselves. I will not mock them in any way. To paraphrase Voltaire I 
do not believe these masks medically help them in any way but I will 
defend to death their right to wear them. And then there are so many 
of THEM out there who deserve to have a mask fixed on their faces 
anyway (so we won't have to 'read their bloody lips').

Yes, there are these microbes and many of them are dangerous. Yes, 
people have died and still continue to do so. And it is indeed true 
we really do not know which way this pandemic is going to turn out. 
There are constant references to the great Influenza outbreak after 
World War One which killed an estimated 20 to 40 million people. Is 
SARS going to be that big?

I am no kin to any Indian sage and I cannot predict such things. But 
I am betting neither can the 'medical experts' or the 'media' give us 
a real idea of what is going to happen. At this stage, given the 
sparse information on hand about SARS, it is all idle speculation- an 
activity that SOME people usually make lots of money out of.

Even assuming the deeply depressing thought that much of humanity is 
going to be wiped out by SARS over the next year (that is what the 
media is making it sound like) let us take a step back from this ap-
proaching abyss, take a deep breath (go ahead, do it while it is 
still safe) and reflect on a few questions about other aspects of 
this PANDEMONIUM of a pandemic.

First the CONTEXT: Why are we so full of fear only of THESE microbes 
and not those dozen other ways in which people die completely avoid-
able deaths?

To anyone who is not already aware of these facts let me spell them 
out: - 250,000 to 500,000 people die every year around the world due 
to ordinary influenza, the common 'garden variety' flu. In the United 
States alone, with a vaccine and medical care available, flu kills 
36,000 people die every year. - Anywhere between 1 to 2.7 million die 
every year due to Malaria- a vast majority of them in Africa, par-
ticularly children - Tuberculosis kills 2 million people every year 
and 98 per cent of these in developing countries - HIV/AIDS claimed 3 
million lives in 2002, including an estimated 610,000 children. - 
Traffic accidents kill 300,000 people every year in Asia alone. - The 
Anglo-American invasion of Iraq killed at least 10 to 15,000 Iraqi 
soldiers and over 2,300 Iraqi civilians in just the initial two weeks 
and maybe several hundred British and American troops.

And I am not even counting those millions who die of poverty and mal-
nutrition around the globe annually. Every year the Indian media at-
tributes hundreds of deaths to the 'cold wave', 'the heat wave', 'too 
much rain' and 'too little rain'. The fact is these deaths have noth-
ing to do with the weather- in my country there people die every 
hour, wantonly, in PERFECTLY good weather. We all know WHY.

I would say this. If we choose to cover our faces let it be in anger 
and in shame- not just due to some microbes alone.

The RECORD so far: Here is the latest status of the number of SARS 
cases worldwide and deaths so far since 1 November 2002 when the dis-
ease is supposed to have broken out in southern China. In almost six 
months since the outbreak a total of 4439 cases of SARS and 'sus-
pected' SARS have been recorded in 26 countries and 263 people have 
died. The mortality rate due to SARS is estimated between 3 to 4 per-
cent- just above that of normal influenza-but even this is not con-
firmed because the total number of real SARS cases is not yet known. 
Nor is its exact method of transmission clearly understood - which is 
why wearing masks may not be a useful precaution at all.

The MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT: The alarm bells about SARS started ringing 
only when the WHO issued a global alert in mid-March . A war of words 
broke out soon between the WHO and the Chinese health authorities- 
the latter being accused of `hiding information' about SARS in its 
first few months. The Chinese said something back, which nobody un-
derstood (they are never going to be a 'superpower' this way).

One of the big critiques of bodies like the WHO from health activists 
has been the way they have adopted a purely `vertical' approach to 
global health problems at the cost of a sustained, holistic and long-
term approach. So whenever there is an outbreak or more usually an 
`outcry' about a particular disease WHO and other global health offi-
cials organize a 'posse', mobilize some resources, and ride into the 
wilderness ready to 'lasso' the villain. Once the 'critter' is tempo-
rarily caught or suppressed the issue is then mostly forgotten.

There is no attempt to even address underlying causes of new virus 
and diseases emerging for e.g., due to super-intensive techniques of 
animal husbandry, recycling of animal offals in animal feed, the use 
of a variety of artificial hormones and growth-enhancers and of 
course from biological warfare experiments. Nor is there any attempt 
to mitigate the conditions, such as overcrowding, poverty and lack of 
housing infrastructure, under which infectious diseases such as SARS 
spread so rapidly. The WHO has failed to push policies that tackle 
other basic social and economic determinants of public health also - 
such as conflict, environmental pollution and privatization of health 
care.

The MEDIA: Has anybody really asked how much of the SARS scare is due 
to the media's penchant for simplistic, alarmist reporting? One of 
the first `big ' SARS cases to make the headlines was that of Johnny 
Cheng, a Chinese-American businessman who died at a hospital in Ha-
noi, Vietnam after flying in from Hong Kong. Just a month ago Hanoi 
was one of the `epicentres' of the SARS pandemic going by media re-
ports. No more. The country seems to have slipped down the hit list 
of `no go' places with just 63 reported SARS cases and 5 deaths.

How did this `super-contagious', `killer' disease get contained in a 
crowded country like Vietnam with a very average public health system 
? Nobody in the media is following the Vietnam story anymore because 
that is not on the map of the usual globe-trotting elites. Hong Kong, 
Singapore and Toronto are on that MAP and hence the panic about vi-
ruses traveling on the business class seat next to THEM. (If nothing 
else, maybe there is a great `success story' out there in Vietnam, 
with details of how a poor, third world country has successfully con-
tained this deadly new infectious disease.)

And what happened to the media follow up to the various other health 
scares we have had in the past decade all around the globe? Bubonic 
plague in India, Ebola in Africa, the Mad Cow Disease in the UK (I 
won't take a dig at Tony B on this one)? And why was there virtually 
no coverage in the `international media' of the influenza outbreak in 
Madagascar in mid-2002, where more than 27 000 cases were reported 
within three months and 800 deaths occurred despite rapid interven-
tion ?

There is an apocryphal story going around this part of the world 
which shows how much of a media `thing' this SARS scare probably is. 
The question asked is why is this new form of flu being called the 
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome? `Severe' and `Acute'- two synony-
mous terms together - WHY? Apparently- the term `Severe' was added 
(only in early March this year) to avoid an awkward acronym resulting 
from what was originally dubbed the Acute Respiratory Syndrome? 
What's the secret here- cover your face and save your --- ?

That story is most probably a bad joke - but let me tell you - I 
think so is the way the entire SARS scare is being reported and 
played out.

I AM NOT SAYING that the deaths due to SARS are not a real, serious 
tragedy or that it could not turn into a dangerous pandemic. Far from 
it. There is no moral mathematics involved here, please. Every human 
life is precious - Iraqi or American, Chinese or Singaporean. A very 
unique, irreplaceable Universe of its own - disappears forever with 
each physical death. All I am pleading for is some more PERSPECTIVE.

WHY are those dying of malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and poverty in 
most developing countries every day not making the headlines? Is it 
not because those who die unseen, unheard, untreated are not in the 
same league as the Gold Card holding frequent flyers of our world? Is 
it not because there is such a `low probability' of a TB infected Af-
rican child coughing in the same air-conditioned corridors as our el-
ites frequent?

A couple of years ago a senior editor of one of India's major newspa-
pers, when asked by a women's rights activist to publish a story 
about high rates of malnutrition among girl children, is reported to 
have refused and said 'The readers of our newspaper do not suffer 
from malnutrition'. Sure, Mr Let Them Eat Cake - but aren't YOU and 
YOUR readers who are the CAUSE of malnutrition in India. (Ahem, what 
I wanted to say was - 'Will someone pass me that cutting edge of the 
French Revolution?!')

When one hears stories such as these a question arises in my mind. 
This is just a nasty, nasty question that I just can't get out of my 
head. COULD IT BE that those who die unseen, unheard, untreated are 
themselves MICROBES in the worldview of our Masters? Has the microbe 
become a metaphor for the unwashed, unwanted millions who don't fit 
into the corporate globalisation of our Empire builders?

Good riddance, THEY suppose, of those teeming, troublesome microbes- 
of so little value to the Empire. Microbes, who cannot afford to BUY 
and have nothing to SELL.

And from this high point of MORAL CLARITY it is just a little leap 
away to identifying those other microbes that need to be dealt with. 
The bearded, turbaned, different, DISSIDENT, multi-tongued microbes. 
To be screened and searched at every airline check-point, discour-
aged, disinfected, disposed off like a dirty secret. Microbes, whose 
very EXISTENCE, is a form of biological warfare to SOME.

No, I really want to bring this subject up. However depressing the 
subject is to me and many of you reading this. It is important to see 
where our dear world is headed towards. A world in which there are 
perishable, pestilent MICROBES and there are those HUMAN BEINGS- 
moulded in the image of GOD.

OK, OK not all of us are microbes of course. Many of us are a 
slightly higher caste- tolerated, employed, paid, domesticated, 
sheep, cattle. And there is also that special category - well-fed, 
trained dogs. God bless the creatures- I really have nothing against 
their species. (In fact, some of them are my best friends) But I 
can't help objecting to the worst of canine qualities that many of 
these four-legged ones in our midst display. Whining and Dining with 
the Masters, Biting and Barking at the Poor.

 I know all this is getting a bit too depressing and I don't like it 
one bit. I have been reading too much Orwell these days, and that 
too, on the front pages of daily newspapers.

So how does one get out of this Animal Farm we all seem to be trapped 
in? I would say - let's go back to our roots and our traditions - the 
great traditions of the ancient microbes.

Think of it- the microbes- the first form of LIFE on Planet Earth. 
Microbes- mating, multiplying, mutating into higher, more virulent 
forms of cognitive, COMBATIVE life. Weathering all storms, RESISTING 
all predators and surviving every sterile environment. Microbes 
evolving, exploring, EXPLODING till every form of LIFE finds its 
place under the sun.

I have got it figured now. What this globe really needs now is a 
Movement of All Microbes and the Mother of All Movements. A million 
MOAMS to match the challenges ahead.

--
Satya Sagar is a journalist based in Thailand. He can be reached at:
mailto:sagarnama@yahoo.com
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