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”).
