Editorial: Ostracism not the answer to Sars scare

It is easy to feel sympathy for the owner of Little Village Backpackers in Rotorua who has banned guests newly arrived from Hong Kong, China and Canada. She says the ostracism, advertised on a blunt sign outside the lodge, is prompted by guests not wishing to share sleeping quarters with potential carriers of severe acute respiratory syndrome. Quite simply, if she took no action, there was a risk patronage would decline. Such is the increasing fear of the Sars virus, and the increasing threat of an unfortunate overreaction.

So far, the response in this country has been largely restrained. Herald inquiries to eight backpacker lodges around Auckland found none was placing similar restrictions on guests. But this admirable refusal to surrender to undue alarm is under increasing pressure. Clearly, the situation in China is far worse than initially thought, and the outlook is bleak. The Mayor of Beijing and the Health Minister have been sacked for covering up the scale of the epidemic, and the official revised total of 402 Sars cases is almost nine times higher than the previous figure. Worse still, the World Health Organisation's representative in China predicts "a very big outbreak" in the country because of the paucity of resources for containing the virus.

In such circumstances, it is understandable that those involved in tourism here are increasingly apprehensive. But banning guests who have travelled from Hong Kong, China and Canada remains excessive. Certainly, such action should not be at the whim of the individual tourist operator. If it is to be taken, it must be at the point of entry to New Zealand. At the moment, the main protective device is the screening of travellers on flights from the worst-affected countries. But the situation is now serious enough, and the tourism industry sufficiently in need of reassurance, to justify full-scale screening of inbound passengers at our airports.

The Ministry of Health has been reluctant to take such action, at one stage describing it as an impossibility. But whatever its preference, and whatever its sanguineness about preventing the entry of Sars, it is, in any event, being propelled in that direction. The ministry has dipped its toe in the water by stationing nurses at international airports to offer support, advice and screening to border control authorities.

Yet it seemed equivocal about the move, implying that its chief purpose was to be seen to be doing something to combat the Sars threat. Certainly, the ministry did little to counter critics who suggested the nurses were mostly for show, given that the incubation period for Sars is three to 10 days. That makes it difficult to screen people unless they are showing symptoms - whether high fever, coughing or shortness of breath.

Nonetheless, international experience reinforces the importance of detecting suspected cases at the earliest possible stage. Once isolated, the virus can be contained. And 95 per cent of patients, once identified as being infected with the virus, can expect a full recovery. Soon, even the question-mark over the effectiveness of screening will disappear.

American health authorities expect a test to screen people for the virus to be available in about a week. The test, which will distinguish Sars from lookalike colds and the flu, will be made available worldwide. At that point, there can be no reason not to introduce full-scale screening through a medical examination, at airports. With such practice in place, New Zealanders would undoubtedly feel safer. Most important, there would be far less possibility of overreaction - and undue discrimination against visitors from Hong Kong, China and Canada. Sensible precautions must be taken against Sars. Unwarranted ostracism is not one of them.