EDITORIAL – Keeping out a killer virus

Cleanliness is not just next to godliness. In the time of SARS, cleanliness could be a virus killer and therefore a lifesaver. The news from the SARS frontlines is hardly encouraging. Disease experts say the virus, which appears to be rapidly mutating, can linger even in items that SARS patients have touched such as doorknobs. The virus can stay in human waste for up to four hours. Keeping the virus at bay will require stringent cleanup measures.

With this in mind, President Arroyo kicked off yesterday a weeklong nationwide cleanliness campaign in her hometown of Lubao in Pampanga. Let’s hope this campaign does not turn out to be another flash in the pan. Filipinos take pride in personal hygiene, but this has failed to translate into clean surroundings. Walls, vacant lots, trees and lampposts are considered portable toilets. People spit everywhere, even from a moving vehicle. It’s rare to find a clean public toilet. And we’ve had horror stories for years about indiscriminate dumping of garbage.

Even the threat of dengue failed to compel Filipinos to clean up their surroundings, despite aggressive campaigns to get rid of potential breeding grounds for the mosquito that carries the disease. Now the rainy season, which is dengue season, is again approaching. This should provide additional impetus for the public to clean up their communities.

If the threat of hemorrhagic fever, typhoid and cholera failed to persuade Filipinos to make cleanliness a way of life, perhaps a mysterious killer disease without a cure can. There’s still no cure for SARS, but countries hardest hit by the disease are fighting back with measures that are turning potential disease hot zones into areas as antiseptic as a hospital operating room. The threat posed by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome could finally change Filipinos’ filthy habits, which is why this cleanliness campaign should be aggressively pursued and sustained.