ABSTRACT
The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (or SARS) in 2003 illuminated an interesting series of transnational connections linking Canada and Asia. The virus was thought to have spread from Guangdong and Hong Kong to Vancouver and Toronto, and from there back across the Pacific to the Philippines. This geography of transmission highlighted some of the key channels of human interaction between Canada and Asia-China and the Philippines were two of Canada’s three largest sources of immigrants in the 1990s. But the viral transmission, which appeared to occur almost exclusively in hospital settings, also shed light upon the accentuated exposure of the Filipino community in Toronto. More than any other immigrant group, men and women from the Philippines are concentrated in the healthcare sector as nurses, personal support workers, clinical assistants and medical technologists. Even in non-health care positions in hospital settings, such as janitors and cafeteria staff, Filipinos are heavily represented. They were, therefore, at the front line of exposure to SARS, and indeed a Filipina nurse at Toronto’s North York General Hospital was the first Canadian health care worker to die after contracting the virus.
