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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (91855)	4/10/2003 4:14:12 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

about SARS, Chinese gov. will learn a hard lesson from this, but not has too much to do about transparency of the system. Because most of people in Guangdong knew about this atypical pneumonia back in January, when it just started on a bigger scale (I think about 300 some people got infected in January, and 1/3 of them were medical staff). And people in Beijing, and even I who do not live there, knew about the disease back in January by reading (online) Chinese news. The lesson China will learn has everything to do with the communication and connection among the National Health Dept. and Provincial Health Dept. and military hospitals in Beijing. Guangdong has a history of being an "independent" (in terms of provincial affairs NOT in terms of political affairs) kingdom<g>, and this time they should have informed the Central National Health Dept. much earlier, and taken the matters more seriously. I have not denied this. If you go back to my earliest post on SARS, I have stated that. Although I think this was NOT due to “cover-up”, but due to inexperience and lack of knowledge about the disease. They thought (quite a few of Chinese medical doctors/scientists still think) this atypical Pneumonia is just like a regular atypical Pneumonia, which has happened on regular basis (annually) in China. Just yesterday, I read some report saying the patients who were dead of SARs may be very well due to complication of other illness, but not SARs per se. And quite a few Chinese scientists still think it is the clymeida bacteria resulting in the death. This type of opinion contributes, at least partially, to the slow response to the disease. And China will also learn that it should set up a sound national communicable disease system, and the Central gov. should have a tight control of provincial dept. on this. And China now has have the 1st hand experience and learned, how big/devastating a harm a communicable disease can do to the Chinese, as well as the world, economy, with the modern “mess” media help and fan-fire. Now about how Western media can misinform people. I heard quite a few US/western doctors, and Western media, claim there is no cure for SARS/atypical Pneumonia. This is absolutely not true. Close to 80% of Chinese patients have been cured (as well as >150 HK patients), so this is nothing like AIDS, one is doomed after getting it. Yes, SARS has a high mortality rate, no doubt about it. But with early and proper treatment, a vast majority of people do get cured. And steroid, several anti-bionics, and one antiviral drug, plus some Chinese herbal medicines, in fact, can control and cure SARS, especially when patients go to doctor as soon as they have some symptom. The majority of people who were dead had other chronicle disease, or in old age, or under extreme stress (in those couple of Doctors case) so with very low immune system, or went to doctor too later (like that American who was teaching in ShenZhen, who felt ill for a month, and did not go to doctor after 20 days or so). One thing American media is really good at, that is scaring people. Another thing I found interesting is that even if now in China, you can find few people are really scared of SARS, and few people wear masks on the street. Most Americans would say this is because Chinese gov. cover-up on the real threat of SARS. And they are absolutely wrong. Atypical pneumonia has been on the newspaper since January, and the gov. has publish the guideline how to prevent it from mid-February. Although it has not taken over the headline until recently because most of Chinese are glued to their TV screen watching the Iraqi war<g>. Heard that story a woman in NangJing cut off her figure in order to take her husband attention away from Iraqi war on tv? Quite a few of the US doctor who has never treated a SARS patient yet, but talked with such an authority as if they have known this disease for a decade. Talk about super-ego.