SARS fear grips Adela’s hometown

ALCALA, PANGASINAN — Three villages in the hometown of the country’s first "probable" fatality from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Adela Catalon, have been "isolated and quarantined," local government officials reported yesterday.

Alcala Mayor Juanito Collado said health authorities are taking the body temperature of the residents of these villages, located in Barangay Vacante, twice a day to check for fever, one of the first signs of SARS. There are more than 700 residents in Vacante.

"There’s fear among the people, and we are trying our best to allay that fear," Collado told The STAR.

Policemen and personnel from the Department of Health (DOH) are on hand to ensure that the quarantine is properly implemented. The local police will also seek the help of the provincial mobile group to augment their ranks. The quarantine started on April 14 — the date of Catalon’s death — and will last until April 28.

While most residents in these three villages are not allowed to go outside their homes or have contact with other people from neighboring villages, some are allowed to go out, particularly those who have to work.

Local officials are studying the possibility of tapping into the municipal government’s calamity fund to provide food for people who are not able to work due to the quarantine.

Collado said he is awaiting the DOH’s recommendation on what course of action to take before the municipal council passes a resolution declaring Vacante under a state of health emergency.

The mayor added that Catalon’s driver and his daughter, who were both admitted at the San Lazaro Hospital in Manila due to high fever and feared to have contracted SARS from their close contact with Catalon, are now recovering. They are still confined at the hospital.

Catalon, who worked in Canada for 15 years as a nursing assistant, only came home on April 4 to look for a cancer specialist for her ailing father, who eventually died yesterday at a government hospital in Muntinlupa City.

Residents in the nearby town of Sto. Tomas are also starting to panic because of SARS.

Mayor Bebot Villar said many of his constituents have asked him what they could do to protect themselves from the SARS virus, which is airborne.

"(t makes one paranoid because we don’t know who were in contact with the victim when she had just returned," Villar said.

He added, "If indeed Catalon died of SARS, health authorities should tell the truth and not keep the people guessing so we could take the necessary precautions."

Sources said Catalon attended a graduation ceremony of a relative in a barangay high school here. Health authorities and local officials who conducted an investigation claimed it was not Catalon, but her sister who looked like her, who attended the affair.

Provincial health officer Dr. Nemesia Mejia said she is thankful to the DOH for sending a medical team, headed by epidemiologist Dr. Rev Cayabyab, to attend to the needs of the residents in Vacante.

She added they are also telling people not to panic if someone develops a fever because the most common ailments in summer are the flu, fever, and cough.

Mejia also said that the hospital in the nearby town of Villasis, where Catalon was initially brought for treatment, was fumigated and all those who had contact with her quarantined. The hospital currently accepts only outpatients.

Upon the instruction of Gov. Victor Agbayani, the provincial health office started distributing vitamins to residents under quarantine. They were also provided with containers of one percent chlorine solution to disinfect their surroundings.