Volume 10, Number 8—August 2004
Dispatch
Print Media Response to SARS in New Zealand
Nick Wilson*
, George Thomson*, and Osman Mansoor†
, George Thomson*, and Osman Mansoor†
Table 1
Information on the clinical features of SARS in the New Zealand Heralda
| Clinical feature | No. (%) of articles (N = 261) |
|---|---|
| Symptoms detailed on the Ministry of Health’s SARS Web site | |
| Cough or fever | 67 (26) |
| Cough | 55 (21) |
| Feverb | 54 (21) |
| “Shortness of breath” | 15 (6) |
| “Trouble breathing” or “difficulty breathing” | 5 (2) |
| “Body aches” or “muscle pain” (myalgiab) | 3 (1) |
| “Diarrhoea”b or “discomfort” |
2 (1) |
| Additional symptoms of SARS from the literature (3–5) | |
| Chillsb | 12 (5) |
| Headache | 5 (2) |
| Otherc |
3 (1) |
| Other words relating to clinical features | |
| “Pneumonia” or “flu” | 103 (39) |
| Pneumonia | 67 (26) |
| Flu | 53 (20) |
| Flu-like | 38 (15) |
| Influenza | 17 (7) |
| “High fever” | 34 (13) |
| Temperature | 23 (9) |
| Temperature of 38°C | 9 (3) |
| “High temperature” | 6 (2) |
| “Respiratory symptoms” | 3 (1) |
aSARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome. Quotation marks refer to actual phrases in newspaper articles.
bThese were the symptoms considered to predict SARS most strongly in the early stages of illness, according to Rainer et al. (4).
cOther symptoms included loss of appetite, malaise, rigor, vomiting, sore throat, dizziness, sputum, night sweat, coryza, abdominal pain, neck pain, nausea, arthralgia (“joint pain”), chest pain, rhinorrhoea (“runny nose”).
References
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- Donnelly CA, Ghani AC, Leung GM, Hedley AJ, Fraser C, Riley S, Epidemiological determinants of spread of causal agent of severe acute respiratory syndrome in Hong Kong. Lancet. 2003;361:1761–6. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
- Rainer TH, Cameron PA, Smit D, Ong KL, Hung AN, Nin DC, Evaluation of WHO criteria for identifying patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome out of hospital: prospective observational study. BMJ. 2003;326:1354–8. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
- Booth CM, Matukas LM, Tomlinson GA, Rachlis AR, Rose DB, Dwosh HA, Clinical features and short-term outcomes of 144 patients with SARS in the Greater Toronto area. JAMA. 2003;289:2801–9. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
- New Zealand Ministry of Health. SARS information archive. [Accessed 3 July 2003]. Available from: http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/f872666357c511eb4c25666d000c8888/798fe182730a9f37cc256d8000758927?OpenDocument
- Lau JTF, Yang X, Tsui H, Kim JH. Monitoring community responses to the SARS epidemic in Hong Kong: from day 10 to day 62. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2003;57:864–70. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
- Ministry of Health. Influenza pandemic action plan. Wellington: Ministry of Health, 2002. [Accessed 19 June 2003]. Available from: http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/ea6005dc347e7bd44c2566a40079ae6f/5f5694e4a5736dd2cc256c55000788a3/$FILE/InfluenzaPandemicActionPlan.pdf
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