Light in dark times

TRUSTED REPORTING HAS HELPED READERS NAVIGATE FEAR AND FACTS, FROM THE 'SPANISH' FLU TO COVID-19

- Joyce Teo

On Dec 12, 1998, Mr Paddy Chew became the first Singaporean to publicly announce that he had Aids. The moment was so ground-breaking that The Sunday Times reported it on its front page.

By then, the Aids epidemic had been devastating communities around the world for nearly two decades. A diagnosis of HIV - human immunodeficiency virus - was considered a death sentence as there was no known cure.

People, terrified of being infected, shunned any place or person that had anything to do with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, including healthcare workers.

Mr Chew's decision to go public, in a 15-minute speech to 400 people at Singapore's first Aids Conference held at Suntec City, was nothing short of courageous.

The next day, The Straits Times' Sunday edition carried a photo of Mr Chew, then 38, on Page 1, with more stories on him and the disease across two pages inside.

The photo was taken by photographer Stephanie Yeow, now the paper's deputy head of visualisation. The headline read: "Look at me". The story of Mr Chew was written by reporter Allison Lim.

A few days later, news editor Alan John penned a column headlined "Let's start facing Aids and stop fearing its victims".

"At that time, I felt there was so much to say that wasn't being said," says Mr John, 71, who retired as the paper's deputy editor in 2015.

He took an interest in stories about HIV/Aids after becoming a volunteer at the Communicable Disease Centre (CDC) at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, where Aids patients were treated. He was also helping out at the anonymous testing clinic run by non-governmental organisation Action for Aids.

"If you went to the CDC at the time, you saw right away that this was not about the gay community only," says Mr John.