China on right track to ward off second wave: expert
Hu Bijie, director of the infectious disease department of Zhongshan Hospital in Shanghai and a member of the national and local expert teams for medical treatment of COVID-19 patients.
China won’t be hit by a second wave of COVID-19 if it continues on the track it's on now, said Hu Bijie, a leading infectious disease expert in China, at a Friday event during the third China International Import Expo.
While testing and treatment methods have come a long way since the outbreak of the pandemic, China's rapid rebound is thanks to a systematic and effective approach to controlling the virus, he said.
Hu is the director of the infectious disease department of Zhongshan Hospital in Shanghai and a member of the national and local expert teams for medical treatment of COVID-19 patients.
“We have to be prepared for the possibility that massive vaccination against COVID-19 won’t start even next year, but if China goes down the track it’s on now, the second wave won’t happen,” he said.
Hu said the death rate of COVID-19 patients in China is down significantly from the early months of the outbreak. At the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, a designated medical institute for the treatment of COVID-19 patients where over 1,000 patients have been admitted, none of the latter 700 patients died, he said.
Effective treatments contributed to these results to a large extent, according to Hu.
“We found low molecular weight heparin against blood clotting and glucocorticoid most useful for patients,” he said. “The former effectively prevents thrombus in the lower limbs that could cause necrosis in the legs as a consequence of COVID-19 infection.”
Shanghai experts also found prone ventilation, or ventilation with patients lying in a face-down position, helpful, Hu said.
Recently the Chinese government has required people who travel to China from abroad to produce negative results of both nucleic acid and IgM antibody tests for COVID-19. Hu said this is a necessary measure to prevent import of the coronavirus into the country as a new wave of the pandemic is confronting the world.
He further explained that people who have been vaccinated, but are not infected, won’t be positive in the IgM tests.
Hu made the comments at an event of Roche Diagnostics, during which the company introduced its comprehensive solutions and innovations in COVID-19 testing.
