HONG KONG—When Hong Kong confirmed its first case of H1N1 flu last week, housemaid Chloe Belle Dogeno felt a sense of déjà vu, knowing that the days of endless house cleaning, wiping of doorknobs and washing of rugs, towels and bed sheets were here again, like when the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak struck the bustling territory in 2003.

But her worries, like many of the 130,000 Filipino housemaids in this Chinese territory, go beyond the extra house chores, the expected restrictions by her employer to meet her friends, or her health.

It’s the thought of getting fired if she gets infected, a tragedy for the 42-year-old breadwinner and the family she feeds and siblings she sends to school back home in Dumangas, Iloilo.

She has worried about losing her job when the global economic meltdown sparked massive layoffs. Now, a new storm is brewing.

“Now that the swine flu is here, it means more hard work for me—changing the doormats, bed sheets and towels more often. I have to do a lot of wiping again,” Dogeno said.

She remembered the things she did when SARS hit a few years ago. “I had to put a pail filled with Chlorox and disinfectant by the door so my wards—a couple and their two children—could wipe their shoes and things before entering. I had to constantly change the doormats and wipe the toilet,” she said.

She said she would be very careful now with hygiene because of the repercussions should she lose her job. “If I get terminated, I’m not the only one who will go hungry. It will be a tragedy for my family in the Philippines,” Dogeno said.

Mexican tourist

Hong Kong, where memories of the 2003 deadly SARS outbreak are still fresh, became the first Asian country to have a confirmed case of H1N1 flu when an unidentified Mexican tourist flew into Shanghai then traveled on to Hong Kong via China Eastern Airlines.

He developed fever on arrival on Thursday and is now in stable condition and isolated in the hospital.

Authorities, however, immediately put all the guests and staffers of the 100-room Metropark Hotel in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai entertainment and business district under quarantine in a desperate effort to prevent the infection from spreading.

Officials have conducted medical checkups on about 200 of the guests and staff holed up at Metropark. Sixty people who had mild symptoms were taken to hospitals for follow-up checkups, Thomas Tsang, controller of the Center of Health Protection, was quoted as saying on radio RTHK’s website on Saturday.

Text messages

The troubling news quickly spread among the Filipino community mostly by text messages. Not all of them are allowed by their employers to watch TV. Some were ordered to stay home, barred from even bringing their Chinese wards to nearby community playgrounds, where they meet other Filipino housemaids.

Wan Chai district, a small “Pinoytown” dotted with remittance centers and stores selling Philippine products, became practically a ghost town.

“There is nobody here in Wan Chai. It’s like a ghost town. I hope this will not take long. It will kill my business,” said Ambo Soabas, 43, owner of Mang Ambo, a popular Filipino restaurant about 500 meters from Metropark.

Some 300 to 500 customers, mostly Filipino domestic helpers, come to his restaurant in normal times, but only a few dozen showed up when news of the flu in the territory spread.

“During the SARS outbreak, our business went down by 80 percent. For three months, we earned only a pittance just enough to pay the rent. I had to secure a loan from the Hong Kong government to pay the salaries of my employees,” Soabas said. But he felt confident that Hong Kong was better prepared this time to deal with any outbreak.

“Hong Kong can better deal with this now than any other country because of its experience with SARS,” he said. “We learned about SARS before when it was already full blown. Now the virus is still in Mexico and the US but we already have health advisories here. Hopefully, this will come to pass quickly.”

Prayers

Dante Peralta, a photographer who has worked in Hong Kong for 15 years, draws strength from prayers. “During the days of SARS, I was OK because I took precautions and I prayed. It’s difficult if we lose our source of income. We think of our families back home,” he said.

The scare has affected Hong Kong’s bustling night life on which many Filipino bar girls, like 28-year-old Susan Antonio, depend for a living.

The night before Hong Kong health and police authorities sealed off Metropark Hotel, Antonio said she had earned HK$1,400 in Wan Chai when bars were filled to the rafters with expats and tourists.

The next day, she only earned HK$100 because there was hardly any merrymakers around.

“I got scared when I found out about the swine flu here. I work near Metropark,” Antonio said. “I really have to be careful because I don’t want to return home. There are no jobs there and life there is so harsh.”

Face masks

When word of Hong Kong’s first H1N1 flu case spread, housemaid Vina Almeda was immediately sent by her employer in Tseung Kwan O in the New Territories to a drugstore in a shopping mall to buy face masks.

She was there early but found a long line of people. “I got scared because there was already a crowd and not all were wearing masks,” she said.

The Philippine Consulate issued an advisory to the Filipino community on April 30, then followed up with another one when Hong Kong confirmed the first case of H1N1 infection.

The consulate beefed up its hotline staff to handle the expected deluge of inquiries about the flu, and a meeting was scheduled with Filipino workers Sunday.

“The Hong Kong government, given its experience in the SARS outbreak, has so far demonstrated that it can handle the situation. That gives us confidence that it can handle this, but of course we still have to take precautionary measures,” Vice Consul Val Roque said. “We want to have a semblance of normality so there is really no reason to panic.”

When SARS struck in 2003, nearly 300 died in Hong Kong, including two Filipino housemaids.

“It’s reassuring to know that treatment and medicine are now available to fight swine flu. You can even buy the medicine over the counter. The bigger problem here is losing our jobs if we get infected. It’s like going through the same nightmare again,” Dogeno said.