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Impoverished Ningxia struggles against
virus
By an ATol correspondent
HONG KONG - China's central government has made
repeated calls on all Chinese to help prevent the spread
of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) into the
country's impoverished countryside. As Asia Times Online
has witnessed in western China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous
Region, a small, predominantly Muslim administrative
region, this concern is not unfounded.
In
Yinchuan, the autonomous region's capital, the Yinchuan
People's Hospital has established an outpatient fever
clinic that has become a hive of activity. Since late
April the clinic has been averaging between 30 and 40
patients each day. The patients exhibit symptoms such as
fever, severe cough and/or breathing difficulty, all of
which are associated with SARS. A nurse in the clinic
said, "Now we are even running short on masks. [Mask]
production has had to be increased."
The clinic
has reserved isolation wards for observation and
diagnosis of patients suspected of being infected by
SARS. Ever since the arrival of SARS in Ningxia, the
People's Hospital No 110 ambulance service has been
extremely busy picking up suspected SARS cases. Medical
staff donning protective clothing and goggles escort
patient after patient out of the ambulance and into the
clinic for diagnosis. Those with fevers higher than 38
degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit), heavy cough
or breathing complications receive lung CT (computed
tomography) scans or chest X-rays and await the results
in the observation room. Patients with abnormal results
are referred to specialists. If a patient is confirmed
to have contracted the virus they are immediately placed
in quarantine.
Ningxia Medical College's
affiliate hospital is rather deserted in comparison to
the People's Hospital. Residents are afraid to see
doctors there because it is well known in Yinchuan that
the college's hospital has admitted confirmed SARS
patients. Medical staff with every centimeter of their
body covered except their eyes appear terrified of any
people who approach the clinic, as the stranger may very
well be infected. The entrance to the clinic is quite
inconspicuous. A notice posted outside the entrance
encourages the staff to fight the virus to the end,
comparing the staff's struggle to the war more than 20
years ago between China and Vietnam. There is an honor
roll composed of the names of health workers who are on
the front lines of the battle against SARS, describing
them as "white-coat warriors". The hospital has admitted
six confirmed SARS patients coming from hard-hit Inner
Mongolia since early April, including Ningxia's first
confirmed infection.
Staff say none of the
clinic's workers have been infected with the virus, as
has been common in Hong Kong and Canada, because of
adequate precautions being taken. The protective
apparatus used in treatment of patients takes half an
hour to prepare. The frontline staff work in six-hour
shifts. They try to augment their immune systems through
globulin injections and traditional medicines believed
by Chinese to be effective in preventing infection by
the virus.
What has displeased one doctor is the
mandatory off-duty self-quarantine. Before the
establishment of the SARS isolation zone, he had been
living with his family opposite the isolation zone. But
now he can no longer enjoy family life - his family has
moved out and can only be reached by telephone.
Aside from isolation pains, there is another
problem in Ningxia: SARS-related profiteering. The
Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Yinchuan,
in its urgent need for a large quantity of masks,
jointly bought some 3,000 masks with a local hospital
for frontline medical staff. Some of the staff felt
something unusual while wearing the masks. When torn
open, the so-called "16-layer masks" had only six to
eight layers. Aside from the outside layers, all middle
layers were merely scraps of white clothing with no
protective function at all. Medical authorities
immediately quarantined medical workers who had used
those masks and worked to find the origin of the goods.
Local inspection officers later labeled them as "Three
No" products, meaning no trademark, no origin and no
manufacturer on the packages. Unqualified for processing
or selling medical instrument, the company that provided
those masks also made 50 protective suits for the Center
for Disease Control and Prevention. The 130-yuan
(US$15.70) suits had been worn by frontline medical
workers.
Despite intense efforts in parts of
Yinchuan, residents of Ningxia feel that local
authorities have not done enough to protect the rest of
the region's population from SARS. They say that Ningxia
is the land of the "Three Nos" - no money, no
supervision and no vigilance, an ideal situation to
allow the further spread of the virus. Once one leaves
the capital, this becomes immediately apparent.
The loosely guarded No 2 Shuangzhuang residences
of Honghua village in the outskirts of Yinchuan provide
a sharp contrast to the capital's strict quarantine
measures. Two guards wearing gas masks rather than
surgical masks serve to alert passers-by that something
unusual is happening there. A two-meter-wide walkway
separates the quarantined residences from the
non-quarantined residences. Isolated residents need only
raise their voices a bit to make conversations with
neighbors. Fearing contracting the virus, a resident
living opposite the isolation region walked by quickly,
covering his face with his collar. Members of the
anti-SARS inspection team once saw residents held under
quarantine directly tossing money to shop owners to buy
food. Additionally, the disinfecting and handling of
garbage in the isolation region was overlooked.
Ningxia's government has said that no infections
have been discovered in the countryside. It has vowed to
strengthen prevention work in the impoverished rural
areas. The authority has dispatched seven medical teams
consisting of more than 800 medical workers to the
countryside to assist in the preventive effort. In some
villages in Huinong County, the slogan deeply rooted
among the masses is "Do not come into contact with
strangers!" Children coming across visitors will cover
their mouths and say, "Teachers tell us not to come in
contact with strangers. Have you been infected by fei
dian [SARS] or not?"
Money is the key
headache in the region's rural areas. A peasant in Baoma
New Village said that although authorities had posted
notice in the village, disinfection or cleaning workers
had yet to come. "Our village has no money, the common
folk here aren't worth money," he said. He expressed
concern about the virus and also disclosed that schools
had been closed for 10 days. According to the villager,
only the few locals with a bit of money can afford to
buy medicines that supposedly protect against SARS. A
dose of Chinese herbal medicine costs more than 30 yuan
and only three or four of the 50-60 families in the
village were buying those herbs. His annual income is
only about 2,000 yuan ($240). Buying medicine is beyond
his means.
A propaganda banner posted at the
exit of the sparsely populated Hongguozi village reads:
"Rely on science. Be steadfast in belief. Unite to
combat SARS!" A peasant woman said people recently came
to advise villagers on how to prevent the disease, but
offered no practical assistance at all. With an annual
income of only 600 yuan, she has little in the way of
options.
In addition, the Epidemic Prevention
Station of Huinong County has posted notices advising
against inviting people outside the county, especially
relatives and friends from SARS-affected regions, to
attend ceremonies such as weddings and funerals.
Villagers returning from SARS-affected regions are
required to report to the station and undergo
inspection.
A herdsman tending his sheep on an
almost grassless field said he learned about SARS from
television. In his opinion, he only needs to separate
his sheep from those of others to avoid infection. As to
whether he should feed sheep some anti-SARS medicine, he
complained that the local government had forbidden him
to tend his animals on the nearby mountains so as to
prevent erosion and promote mountain vegetation. The
barren opening has so little grass that his sheep are
getting thinner and thinner. With not enough grass for
his sheep, this man has enough worries of his own that
he doesn't care about whether someone nearby has SARS.
Problems in China's rural areas are difficult to
manage. With no money to allocate, Ningxia's government
can only allocate authority. Village-level authorities
have been authorized to seal off an entire village
immediately once a SARS case has been detected.
Delegating such authority to the lowest of government
officials in what is normally a very centralized
hierarchy indicates the desperation to which the Chinese
government has been driven by this virus that the World
Health Organization says has yet to peak in the country.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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