A woman wearing a mask watches her cellphone in Santiago, Chile, March 5, 2020. Chilean Health Ministry announced the country's fourth case, a 40-year-old patient who returned from Italy on Sunday and developed symptoms of the virus on Wednesday. (Photo by Jorge Villegas/Xinhua)

"A good way to tackle the poison of prejudice is to offer information that's more evenhanded," said Flavia Lima, a Brazilian daily newspaper's columnist.

MEXICO CITY, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Prejudice can't win the battle against viruses, but even-handed information can, a Brazilian daily newspaper's columnist, Flavia Lima, have said in a recent article headlined "The Virus of Prejudice."

The editorial was written as a response to readers' anger over a previous story about the country's first case of COVID-19 -- a Brazilian man who recently returned from Italy -- run by the same newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo in late February.

After the story was published, one of the readers complained about the photo selected to illustrate it, in which Asians, presumably of Chinese origin, were depicted.

Lima said such a choice only fanned the flames of discrimination by underscoring "the connection between the virus and Asians," which reinforced prejudice and was far from contributing to productive discourse, as a news outlet should do instead.

"Prejudice always gains strength in the midst of fear and ignorance," which she said was something media need to be aware of, particularly in times of health scares.

"Associating epidemics with an ethnic group, a nation or a particular community is a recurring theme in clinical history," said Lima, noting syphilis has at various times been believed to derive from the Italians, the French or the Americans.

Although China saw the first outbreak of the novel coronavirus, scientists have yet to determine the origin of the pathogen. But speculations over the source of the virus are already rife, especially on social media, said Lima.

"A good way to tackle the poison of prejudice is to offer information that's more evenhanded," she said, adding that the newspaper is moving in the right direction in this sense.

On Feb. 27, the daily published images of people wearing face masks on various occasions, such as the Guarulhos airport in Sao Paulo, a Champions League match in Madrid, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and St. Peter's Square in the Vatican City. ■