'China's experience needed’
By Chen Qingqing
World Health Organization (WHO) experts hailed China's
efforts and achievements in the country's fight against the outbreak of the
novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pneumonia, as China stands in the frontline to
protect the world from it.
The organization also urged other countries and regions to
learn from China's lessons, the most important of which is the speed of the
action.
"The world needs the experience and expertise of China,
as the country is the most experienced in the world, which has turned around a
serious outbreak," Canadian epidemiologist Bruce Aylward, who heads the
WHO mission team to China, said on Monday at a technical briefing upon the
completion of the WHO-China Joint Mission on COVID-19, adding that the only
success the world had in tackling COVID-19 is in China, where old approaches
like suspension of travel and quarantine were used.
"There's no question that China's bold approach has
changed the course of the rapid escalation of this epidemic. These significant
measures could only be adopted with tremendous collective will, not only in the
community but also [among] top officials, which is also rare to see,"
Aylward said.
Before he addressed the media, Aylward sent out condolences,
in a highly emotional way, to all the Chinese people who lost their lives and
their family members amid the outbreak while expressing a special gratitude to
people in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei Province, where the COVID-19
originated, as they have made great contributions to the epidemic control work.
Citing several examples he noticed during this trip to
China, the Canadian epidemiologist said he was impressed by the capacity of social
mobilization and tremendous collective will of top-down officials and Chinese
people in containing the virus, but without proven pharmaceutical measures yet,
the disease can be extremely dangerous.
He described those measures such as keeping a social
distance, implementing quarantine and city lockdowns as old-fashioned but
aggressive as well as ambitious, underscoring a huge sacrifice that Chinese
people have made for the happiness of others – not only in China but also in
other countries.
"We have to work with what we have. China's approaches
are the only ones that we know work," he said.
One example, as Aylward mentioned, was although every
province suffered from the epidemic, local governors always prioritized
mobilization of medical workers and supplies to support Wuhan and Hubei.
He noted that the ongoing slowing spread by weeks thanks to
China's efforts can "buy time to test drugs, work on vaccines," and
the international community needs to use the time China has bought to better
effect.
China's National Health Commission (NHC) reported 409 new
coronavirus infections nationwide, 150 new deaths as of Monday. The total
number of infected soared to 77,150, with 2,592 deaths as of Monday.
Outside China, there were 1,769 confirmed cases as of Monday
and the death toll reached 17. The disease has spread to 28 countries and
regions across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, with South Korea, Japan and
Italy recording spikes in recent days.
The decline is real, Aylward noted, referring to visible
progress that China has made in epidemic control work as the daily new
infections have been dropping in recent weeks.
The number of coronavirus cases reported in China a day has
dropped from 2,500 when he arrived two weeks ago to 406 on Monday, he noted.
"That's an 80 percent decline and the decline that we are seeing is
real," the expert said.
It has been a month since Wuhan - a city with 11 million
people - implemented the city lockdown, while other provinces, municipalities
and autonomous regions implemented various measures to control population flow
in containing the epidemic at the cost of social and economic growth.
When asked about whether the epidemic in Wuhan is getting
close to an inflection point, the WHO expert said as cured numbers rose and new
infections continued to drop, it showed a rapid escalation of the outbreak has
been contained. However, when daily new infections drop to double digits in the
next few weeks, it would be the time to decide whether the epidemic is under
control.
Italy is taking similar moves. The WHO official said he has
explained to the world that there are benefits from extreme containment
measures, which are the tools available to fight the disease.
The mission's report has 22 recommendations for other
countries and China itself, including recommendations for the general public,
which, however, can't work without the collective will of the population
contributing to it.
This virus is neither SARS nor influenza and viewing it as
one or the other impedes the ability to learn about the virus and adapt the
response, the WHO official noted.
According to the major findings of the WHO-China Joint
Mission, the deadly coronavirus has not significantly mutated.
"The animal host has not been confirmed - a bat could
be the host, but also a pangolin," Liang Wannian, head of the Chinese
expert group at the joint mission, who is also in charge of responding to
COVID-19 at the NHC, said at the press briefing.
The joint expert team visited Wuhan over the weekend after
completing investigations in Beijing, South China's Guangdong Province and
Southwest China's Sichuan Province.
The mission aims to learn more about the epidemic features,
including the source of transmission, to better understand the Chinese
government's policies and the future response to the epidemic, and to put
forward recommendations for relevant scientific research, Liang said.
"The transmission route is respiratory droplets. The
fecal-oral route needs to be further studied," Liang said.
About 80 percent are milder cases and about 13 percent are
severe, while 6 percent are critically ill, the WHO-China joint mission
technical report showed. About 1 to 5 percent of the close contacts to
coronavirus patients were later confirmed to be positive.
Liang said that 3,000 medical staff are estimated to have
been infected nationwide and scientists are studying which cases were
infections in hospitals and which were in communities.
A large part of medical staff infections took place in
Wuhan, which is mainly due to the initial lack of understanding on COVID-19 and
the lack of protective supplies, he said.
Epidemiological curves showed China's measures have helped
avoid a larger scale of outbreak that could have involved more than 100,000
people. Those changes didn't come easy, due to huge decisions of policymakers,
like suspending travel and other quarantine measures, Aylward said.
He noted that there's only one drug right now - Remdesivir -
that might be effective. But enrollment in a clinical trial has been slow
because other things are being tested, according to the briefing.
Aylward also shared the changes he saw in Wuhan, such as the
growing space in Wuhan hospitals in treating patients.
While the virus may continue to spread in China for months,
it's time for the country to restore economic and social order while continuing
epidemic control. In some major cities, restrictions should be lifted
progressively, the WHO expert suggested.
Source: Global Times
'China's experience needed’
Reviewed by PEOPLES MAIL
on
03:33
Rating:
No comments: