May 21, 2020

Editor's note: As China has achieved initial victory in the fight against the epidemic, the epidemic in Chile and Latin America is getting severe. Tsinghua University Latin America Center has been working in Chile and Latin America for several years, and is now working hard with the Chilean government and academia to support Chile's resistance against the epidemic. Tsinghua University's important partner in Chile, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile(PUC), is the top private university in Chile. Its President, Dr. Ignacio Sanchez, attended the "Covid-19 Social Roundtable" (which is established by government as decision-making reference mechanism for specific events in Latin American countries) convened by the President of Chile through his Minister of the Interior, Dr. Ignacio Sanchez also takes main responsibility of this Roundtable. This mechanism also includes the Chilean Minister of Health and the Minister of Science; the Vice President of Scientific Research of PUC is responsible for coordinating the contact work of this mechanism.

Three weeks ago (March 27), the Center held an online conference to teach the Chilean government, academia, and enterprises about China's anti-epidemic experience. Out of trust in China and respect for China's experience, President Sanchez and his team sent questions related to Covid-19 diagnosis and intensive care, and expected to further learn and communicate with Chinese experts. In this context, Tsinghua University and PUC jointly held seminars on Covid-19 diagnosis and intensive care on April 23 and May 5, 2020, respectively. The meetings invited experts of Peking Union Medical College Hospital who have just returned from the fight against epidemic in Wuhan, they conducted in-depth and detailed exchanges with Chilean medical experts, hoping that China's medical experience can provide a model for Chile's response to the epidemic. The conference was a complete success. According to the Chilean side, the two conferences were very important, pragmatic, and of far-reaching significance. The selfless and professional sharing of Chinese experts provided valuable experience in diagnosing and treating patients in Chile, also reflected great potential cooperation between the two countries. On May 13, the PUC made a summary report about the two meetings and published it on its university website. The Tsinghua University Latin America Center team translated the report into Chinese and English. The following is the news content, and the original link is attached at the end:

China's medical experience-lessons learned to cope with the epidemic

The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (PUC) and Tsinghua University co-organized two webinars to discuss the diagnosis and intensive care for the Covid-19. On the occasion of the global pandemic, this kind of experience and learning is very valuable to doctors, and it has strengthened the idea of how to deal with the Covid-19 epidemic.

The diagnosis and intensive care for Covid-19 are the topics addressed in the two webinars between PUC and Tsinghua University（Photograph：Arek Socha de Pixabay）

Since the outbreak of Covid-19 in Hubei, the region where the city of Wuhan is located, China has mobilized 346 medical teams from 29 provinces across the country to assist Wuhan in late January. The 40,000 Chinese medical staff worked closely as aid team with local medical staff, in one week the identification of the genetic sequence of Covid-19 was achieved, and medical infrastructure with a capacity of 2,600 beds was built within ten days.

At the time of the outbreak, how did medical staff respond to the Covid-19 epidemic? Sharing this experience was the objective of the two webinars that were held jointly between PUC -through the Vice-president of Research and the Faculty of Medicine- and Tsinghua University, in April and May.

"I perceive that China has already won the first phase of a tough battle against the virus and has accumulated valuable experience. We sincerely hope that this experience can be some help to Chile," says Taotao Chen, director of the Tsinghua University Latin America Center.

The diagnosis and intensive care for Covid-19 were the topics addressed in the sessions, which had the participation of academics from the Faculty of Medicine and the UC Christus Health Network on the Chilean side, and professionals from the Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH) from China.

As stated by the PUC Vice President of Research, Pedro Bouchon, "This interaction helps accelerate the adoption of strategies and measures, based on the expert knowledge of those who have been on the front line in Wuhan. I was surprised by the level of preparedness of the Chinese counterpart, who carefully studied specific questions that we sent in advance, which allowed us to quickly focus on critical aspects. Likewise, this interaction demonstrates the high potential of the Chile-China collaboration, and in general of the global collaboration".

Key notes

"Early diagnosis, early report, early quarantine and early treatment." These are the keys to the Chinese medical experience in dealing with the pandemic according to Dr. Xiao Meng, from PUMCH's Clinical Laboratory department. When asked for recommendations for Chile, the doctor was emphatic: "Isolate the suspects, and then: test, test, test. No testing methodology is efficient enough on its own," he said.

Among the specific measures adopted in China are mass tests of the population in urban centers of infection, follow-up measures for infected people through the use of technologies and the distribution of personal protective equipment to protect medical staff.

"For me it was key, because it reinforced fundamental concepts, which I have brought to the Advisory Commission and my colleagues at PUC, and which were relatively resisted by the prevailing knowledge or paradigm at that time," said Catterina Ferreccio, an academic from Public Health Department of Medicine Faculty of PUC, deputy director of ACCDIS (Advanced Center for Chronic Diseases) and member of the COVID-19 Expert Commission that advises the Ministry of Health.

Among these concepts, Dr. Ferreccio highlighted that home isolation of people infected by Covid-19 is not effective, "it does not prevent transmission and the occurrence of new cases. They should all go to shelters or hospitals," she says. Regarding the tests, she reaffirmed the low sensitivity of PCR -used for the diagnosis of coronavirus- and its low usefulness as a discharge criterion, as well as the importance of using saliva in the diagnosis. Other issues were the use of antibodies in the clinic and doubts about antigen tests; the non-existence of re-infections; and the treatment of severe cases by a complete team of specialists who can consider all the most affected organs.

For the specialist, this instance has been very valuable. "I would like to meet with them again and learn what is new, for example, are they still using antivirals in shelters? What Chinese medicines do they use? Have they changed the treatment of clinical cases? Do they maintain the strategy of the shelters? ? Have you seen relevant changes in the virus that change the clinical course or the immune response? I would also like to get updated on vaccine development and the possibility of doing a third phase research in Chile, " Dr. Ferreccio said.

As Taotao Chen from Tsinghua University concluded, "I would like to think about the various raised issues and co-organize another activity with PUC on this topic. I sincerely hope that Chile can win the battle as soon as possible. We would like to march forward with our Chilean friends hand in hand and work hard for it ".

Original link:

https://www.uc.cl/noticias/experiencia-medica-en-china-lecciones-para-afrontar-la-pandemia/