|
|
Letter
SARS Epidemic in the Press
Giovanni Rezza,* Raffaella Marino,* Francesca Farchi,* and Mirella
Taranto*
*Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy
Suggested citation
for this article:
Rezza G, Marino R, Farchi F, Taranto M. SARS: The Epidemic in the Press.
Emerg Infect Dis [serial online] 2004 Feb [date cited]. Available
from: URL: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no2/03-0746.htm
To the Editor: On March 12, 2003, the World Health Organization
(WHO) issued a global alert regarding severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS) in Vietnam, Hong Kong, and China’s Guangdong Province. Three days
later, for the first time in its history, WHO recommended postponing nonessential
travel to the affected areas and screening airline passengers (1).
These initiatives, together with the awareness of the modes transmission
of the coronavirus associated with SARS (SARS-CoV), led to extensive press
coverage.
|
Figure |
|
|
 |
|
|
Click to view
enlarged image
Figure. Number of articles on SARS published
in the five newspapers with the highest nationwide circulation in
Italy, by date of publication; March 15 to May 31, 2003...
|
|
To describe the extent of this coverage in Italy and to identify the
events that prompted peak coverage, we reviewed the five Italian daily
newspapers with the highest circulation (2) from March
12 to March 30. The articles were identified by hand search (reading headlines,
subheads, and titles) and were classified according to the publication
date and page number. We assigned one point to full articles and to front-page
articles or headlines and half a point to short articles. We also reviewed
all national newspapers for articles published before the travel advisory
(March 12–15). (Figure)
Before the travel advisory, no articles were published in the five newspapers,
whereas on March 14, one article was published in a smaller newspaper
(“Osservatore Romano,” the Vatican newspaper). On March 16 (the day after
the advisory), six articles appeared in the five newspapers; through May
31, a total of 750 articles were published. The proportion of articles
that appeared on the front-page was 9.6%, although this percentage was
higher early in the study (50%) than at the time of absolute peak coverage
(12%).
After the first wave of articles in mid-March, several peaks occurred
until mid-April. The events prompting these peaks were identified by determining
the most frequently covered topics, specifically: the death of Carlo Urbani,
the Italian WHO officer who identified the disease in Hanoi; the first
two probable cases in Italy; the death of a suspected case in Naples;
and the press conference announcing the first meeting of the Italian National
Task Force. The highest peak occurred on April 23, after the announcement
that the number of cases had reached 4,000 and that a vaccine would not
be available anytime soon. In the days after the peak, coverage remained
quite high, in association with the definition of SARS as a “global threat”
by WHO and the twofold increase in the number of probable cases in Italy.
The high press coverage was followed by an overall decrease, although
small peaks occurred in association with the conflicts among European
Ministries on airport measures, increased quarantine measures in China,
and the identification of the civet cat as a probable source of SARS-CoV.
Coverage tended to be greater on weekends, probably because political
stories constitute less competition for space on these days.
Evidently, the daily newspaper coverage of SARS has been quite extensive
in Italy, especially in the aftermath of WHO alerts and statements by
the Ministry of Health regarding new cases and more stringent control
measures. During outbreaks of infections, both the media and the public
are often criticized for overreacting, yet public concern over serious
health hazards is essential in guiding prevention activities (3–5)
and in deciding whether to adopt measures that could place restrictions
on civil rights, such as quarantine (6). Although we
did not evaluate the quality of risk-communication of the journalists
or of the experts quoted in the articles, wide press coverage of the WHO
global alert may have contributed to public-health bodies’ taking action
towards containing the epidemic.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank
Nancy Binkin for her advice concerning related literature and Mark Kanieff
for his editorial assistance.
References
- World Health Organization. WHO recommended measures
for persons undertaking international travel from areas affected by
severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Wkly Epidemiol Rec 2003;78:97–120.
- Prima Communicazione; May 2003. n. 329. p. 176.
- Sandman PM, Lanard J. Fear is spreading faster than SARS and so it
should! [cited April 28, 2003]. Available from: URL: www.psandman.com/col/SARS-1.htm
- Covello V, Peters RG, Wojtecki JG, Hyde RC. Risk
communication, the West Nile virus epidemic, and bioterrorism: responding
to the communication challenge posed by the intentional or unintentional
release of a pathogen in an urban setting. J Urban Health 2001:78:382–91.
- CDCynergy emergency risk communication: your guide to effective emergency
risk communication planning. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, 2003. [cited September 25, 2003]. Available from: URL:
http://www.cdc.gov/communication/emergency/erc.htm
- Rezza G. Severe
acute respiratory syndrome. J Epidemiol Community Health 2003;57:643.
|
