Fighting against Aids, yet hiding the super-risks of SARS infection
Peking (AsiaNews) - On the occasion of the World AIDS Day, the vice minister of health, Zhu Qingsheng, said in statement to the press: "China promises to confront AIDS just like we have done so with SARS." The same firmness was expressed by Dr. Han Qide, vice president of China's parliament and member of the Chinese Institute of Science. But many living in Peking hope that the fate of AIDS patients will be slightly better that those suffering from SARS.
Since the first case broke out in Nov. 2002 in the city of Guangdong, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has spread to 32 countries, killing over 900 people before being subdued last June. In China alone there were 349 deaths and more than 5,300 infections.
Over a year since the outbreak, citizens of Peking have noticed the government is covering up the disease's consequences. Above all, marginalization is now widespread. During the last public recruitment into the Chinese armed forces, young men were refused entrance based on having been infected with SARS the previous spring. When asked for some explanation, the young men made it known that "it (SARS) is not dangerous, but no one knows what the long-term effects are." Also in daily life there are problems: when looking for work, those who have had SARS are seen as lepers, as potential "plague spreaders" in society.
In reality it seems that, from some evidence, SARS does have negative consequences.
An unofficial survey showed that, in Peking alone, half of medical personnel who contracted SARS are now suffering from avascular necrosis of the head and femur or thighbone. This illness causes difficulty in walking, including the need of a wheelchair in severe cases. At the Dongzhimen hospital 7 out of 9 staff who were infected with SARS now suffer from head and femur necrosis; at Gulou's hospital, 3 out of 4; at Ji Shuitan's, 3 out of 18; and at the hospital associated with the Bejiing School of Medicine, 40 out of 93 are affected. There are no figures for the hospital in Xuan, Wu, You An nor for the Sino-Japanese medical center. One nurse said, "I got out of the hospital last June; I didn't imagine returning here after two months."
Heath care officials are attempting to cover up the problem, as they had initially done with the SARS epidemic. The first case of severe acute respiratory syndrome struck in Nov. 2002, But authorities made no public statement until Apr. 2003. Now the same thing is occurring with the consequences of SARS. A journalist was asked if he could verify statistics on how many sufferers there were of femur necrosis at the Bejiing School of Medicine hospital, but he received nothing but flat negative responses. In the end, one medical doctor, who wished to remain anonymous, openly released figures to some journalists. Still the official press has not published any information.
Among the Sino-Japanese medical center staff who contacted SARS while treating patients infected with the same disease, there are 8 with avascular head and femur necrosis. They have launched an appeal to medical directors to have all their medical treatments and examinations done at the hospital's expense. All financial assistance has been refused until now, even if the necrosis is an illness they contracted during work-hours and when the government defined medical staff as "angels in white lab coats".
One round of treatments for avascular head and femur necrosis lasts three months and costs nearly 10,000 Yuan (1250). But for most, one round is not enough. Moreover, in more serious cases of patients already confined to wheelchairs, sufferers will need an artificial limb (which lasts 10 years) whose cost is at least 30,000 Yuan. In China, health care costs are at the patient's expense.
For non-medical staff workers (i.e. common sufferers of the disease), the situation is even worse. One woman named He Hong, aged 21, who now sits in a wheelchair, stated in a newspaper: "When I left the hospital months ago, I thought I escaped death by SARS. I finally saw the wide blue sky above me. Soon after, however, that same blue sky turned black and narrow and will remain this way forever." (BX)
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