Hong Kong Prison Homes Spur Virus Risk Decade After SARS
By Natasha Khan - Mar 7, 2013 11:00 AM ET
Daniel J. Groshong/Bloomberg
Members of the World Health Organization's Environmental Health Team walk out of the Amoy Gardens housing estate in Hong Kong on April 30, 2003. More than 40 residents of Amoy Gardens died and 329 were infected.
Chan Sung-ming says the coughs and sneezes echoing through the plywood walls of his windowless, 60- square foot Hong Kong apartment get him thinking: is there a bug going around and could it be deadly?
The bathroom, right, and kitchen which Chan shares with his neighbors in Hong Kong. Photographer: Jerome Favre/Bloomberg
A bed and an chair sit in Chan's subdivided flat in Hong Kong. Photographer: Jerome Favre/Bloomberg
A woman crosses a busy road wearing a mask to protect against the severe acute respiratory virus in Hong Kong on April 18, 2003. When a fast-spreading germ takes hold in Hong Kong, the consequences for the city -- and the world -- can be devastating. Photographer: Peter Parks/AFP/GettyImages
Masked commuters disembark from harbor ferry in Hong Kong on April 10, 2003. SARS infected 1,755 people in Hong Kong, killing 300, and caused economic losses totaling HK$3.8 billion ($490 million) in two months alone as tourist arrivals dwindled and businesses from restaurants to taxi cabs slumped. Photographer: Daniel Groshong/Bloomberg
People head to the immigration counters at the Lo Wu border crossing between Hong Kong and mainland China wearing masks to protect against SARS on April 22, 2003. “Hong Kong acts as a transit point from China to Hong Kong, and Hong Kong to the world,” said Guan Yi, professor of virology at the University of Hong Kong. Photographer: Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images
A worker wearing protective dress participates in the slaughtering of approximately 2,700 chickens at a market in the Kowloon district of Hong Kong on June 7, 2008. Hong Kong detected the H5N1 bird flu virus in a live poultry market in Kowloon, and stopped importing poultry from mainland China. Photographer: Jerome Favre/Bloomberg
A passenger has her temperature taken at Chek lap Kok Airport on April 17, 2003. Last year, 56.5 million people transited the city’s airport-- 65 percent more than in 2002. By the time SARS petered out in August 2003, the virus had spread to more than two dozen countries and three regions, causing 8,096 cases and 774 deaths. Photographer: Christian Keenan/Getty Images
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A decade after SARS began a lethal odyssey via Hong Kong, which has the world's most-densely populated urban areas, Chan says his apartment -- one of eight in a space about the size of a squash court -- makes him feel more prone to airborne germs.
Even as the city spends HK$1.6 billion ($206 million) a year on a disease-tracking center to prepare for future contagions, a tripling in the price of homes in the past decade have forced its 7.2 million residents closer together. That’s stoking the potential for a rapid rise of bugs like the severe acute respiratory virus that exploded there in early 2003.
“In Hong Kong, we live vertically, not horizontally,” said Sian Griffiths, director of the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s school of public health. “It’s as if we’ve turned a village street on its end. People are so close together here, the risk of transmission is greater.”
Chan’s apartment is smaller than some of the city’s prison cells. The 36-year-old electricia... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-07/hong-kong-prison-homes-spur-virus-risk-decade-after-sars.html
