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Stereotyping adds to risk in
Canada
By Marty Logan
MONTREAL - As Canada steels itself against the
onslaught of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS),
the stereotyping of Asians and people of Asian descent
is becoming unhealthy - literally.
Despite the
absence of confirmed cases in Victoria, a city of
200,000 people that is the capital of the west-coast
province of British Columbia, Mayor Alan Lowe says the
disease is being branded as an "Asian" malady, which
could have a dangerous outcome.
"If you let your
guard down you could easily be in contact with people
who are not of Asian descent and have been in contact
with the disease. There is stereotyping going on out
there."
Such branding was also condemned by
Perry Kendall, British Columbia's provincial health
officer.
"I would be concerned we don't develop
any sort of xenophobic attitudes towards people from the
Far East," Kendall told the media.
Visitors from
that region who arrive in Canada by air now face extra
scrutiny from federal government quarantine officers,
who are screening every flight arriving from Asian
destinations, including Japan and Taiwan, in an effort
to prevent the spread of the virus, which has killed
nine people in Canada. Fifteen new quarantine officers
have been trained to help with the job, said Health
Canada, the country's federal department of health.
Although British Columbia is viewed as Canada's
"gateway to the Orient", no SARS fatalities have
occurred in that province so far. All nine fatalities
have been in the country's largest city, Toronto, in the
east-central province of Ontario.
Public health
officials countrywide are constantly urging Canadians
that precautions are only necessary when direct contact
with the virus is possible, and reminding the public
that to date people have contracted SARS only overseas,
and in their homes or in a medical setting, not in
public areas.
On Friday, the Ontario Public
Safety Commission told Reuters that wearing surgical
masks in public is not necessary. "We unfortunately do
not have unlimited supplies of masks and it's necessary
for us to use this supply in a wise and prudent way,"
said James Young, even as many people wore the masks in
Toronto's subways and other crowded public spaces.
Earlier, Sheela Basrur, Toronto's medical
officer of health, lamented that groups, including the
American Association for Cancer Research, had canceled
planned conferences in Canada's largest city. "It's a
great regret to hear large conferences that have been
planned for years in advance have unfortunately had to
cancel," Basrur said .
"And it's not because of
a public health risk but because of a perception on the
part of the delegates, or their home institutions, that
Toronto was an unsafe place to come to. Nothing can be
further from the truth," she added.
In cities
such as Montreal, where no cases have been confirmed,
there are no signs that, with 178 probable or suspected
cases, Canada is one of the world's countries most
affected by the disease.
But in British
Columbia's largest city, Vancouver, suppliers of
surgical masks warned customers early last week to order
stock quickly because they were shipping masks to Asia
faster than they could produce them. Sellers of Asian
herbal medicines also said they were running out of
stock as people bought ingredients for recipes sent from
China that are said to prevent the pneumonia-like SARS.
While Toronto has Canada's largest Chinese
community, Vancouver is known as Canada's gateway to the
Orient because of its location on the Pacific Ocean.
Nearby Victoria has reported two possible cases, Lowe
said.
Many schoolchildren who spent their
spring-break vacation in East Asia have been asked by
their schools to stay home as a precaution, although
public health authorities have not issued such a call.
Lowe himself recently quarantined his own family after
their return from a trip to China and Hong Kong.
Travelers flying from Canadian airports are
being asked to read notices warning them of the chief
symptoms of SARS, which include high fever and
respiratory problems such as cough and difficulty
breathing.
That apparently has not stopped the
spread of the virus. Last week Australia issued a health
alert and recommended that people not travel to Canada
after a three-year-old Canadian girl visiting the
country showed symptoms of the disease. She and her two
brothers were isolated in a Melbourne hospital,
according to Canadian Press.
On Friday, Thailand
put Canada on its "watch list", meaning visitors from
here must wear masks for the first 14 days of their
visits to the Southeast Asian country, and returning
residents must go into home quarantine for two weeks.
Britain and the United States have also warned
against travel to Canada.
Asked whether the
country should expect more frequent outbreaks, Paul
Gully, spokesman for the Health Department said, "We
have been saying for a number of years that emerging
infectious diseases [including Lassa fever, Ebola fever
and the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV] across the
world are a concern.
"We may get other such
challenges in the future. That has always been on the
cards," Gully said from Ottawa.
Since the
Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO) first
issued a global warning about the new disease, there
have been at least 2,223 SARS cases and 78 SARS-related
deaths recorded in a number of countries, including
China, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Canada,
Germany and Britain.
(Inter Press
Service)
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