This article explores the disease-associated stigma attached to the SARS victims in the post-SARS era of Hong Kong. The author argues that the SARS-associated stigma did not decrease over time. Based on the ethnographic data obtained from 16 months of participant observation in a SARS victims’ self-help group and semistructured interviews, The author argues that the SARS-associated stigma was maintained, revived, and reconstructed by the biomedical encounters, government institutions, and public perception.
This report also provides new insight on how the SARS-associated stigma could create problems for public health development in Hong Kong. As communicable diseases will be a continuing threat for the human society, understanding how the disease-associated stigma affects the outcomes of epidemic will be crucial in developing a more responsive public health policy as well as medical follow-up and social support service to the diseased social groups of future epidemic outbreaks.
Many stigmatizing attitudes and behaviors directed towards those with EVD are strikingly similar to those with HIV/AIDS but there are significant differences worthy of discussion. Both diseases are life-threatening and there is no medical cure. Additionally misinformation about affected groups and modes of transmission runs rampant. Unlike in persons with EVD, historically criminalized and marginalized populations carry a disproportionately higher risk for HIV infection. Moreover, mortality due to EVD occurs within a shorter time span as compared to HIV/AIDS.
Shunned by their communities and unable to work, female survivors of Ebola in Guinea face profound hardship as they try to care for their families.
‘Stigma’ is an umbrella term for the direct and indirect consequences of a number of processes that brand someone as different in ways that result in discrimination, loss of status and social exclusion. It can be short-term or evolve into a long-term and life-long issue. Who and how people are being socially labelled – plus the material, political, social and moral consequences of this labelling – often change rapidly throughout the course of an epidemic, particularly from the early stages of an emerging outbreak to an established epidemic.
The first step to addressing or seeking to avoid exacerbating stigma is to identify the nature of, and factors influencing, relationships between those associated with Ebola and the rest of society. Every policy decision should be made with consideration for its immediate and long term consequences for each social group affected. Efforts to de-stigmatise Ebola should focus on improving the social visibility and the physical,