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. 2020 Feb 21;80(5):578–606. doi: 10.1016/j.jinf.2020.02.011

Chinese medical personnel against the 2019-nCoV

Zhan-hui Feng a,1, Yong-ran Cheng b,c,1, Juan Chen d, Lan Ye e, Meng-Yun Zhou c, Ming-Wei Wang d,
PMCID: PMC7126162  PMID: 32092388

We appreciate the work Tang et al. have report emergence of a novel coronavirus in China.1 The 2019-nCoV broke out in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019, and has attracted worldwide attention.2, 3, 4 Although the Chinese government has taken active measures to control this epidemic, the virus is very infectious. According to the real-time data of the National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China up until February 5, 2020, within a short period of half a month, the number of confirmed cases and the number of deaths were 24,443 and 493, respectively. The epidemic is progressing rapidly. 2019-nCoV poses new public health challenges in China.5 In Wuhan, China, the number of local medical staff is insufficient for the demand resulting from the explosive increase in the number of infected patients. Therefore, many medical personnel are needed to devote themselves to the front line of combating the virus.

Medical personnel throughout the country are led under the unified leadership of the Chinese government. Although the epidemic in Wuhan is serious, a large number of medical staff rushed to Wuhan to supplement the shortage of manpower in Wuhan hospitals. This is a battle without smoke, the heroes of which are our medical staff. According to the National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China, as of January 30, 2020, Hubei Province opened 11,000 isolated patient beds, and about 170,000 healthcare professionals from all kinds of medical institutions are working on the front lines and providing care for patients with fevers, and for suspected or confirmed patients. In this time of emergency, under the unified deployment of the Chinese government, there are 52 medical teams including 6097 medical personnel from the National Health Commission, the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, 29 provinces and cities, as well as the army (Fig. 1 ).

Fig. 1.

Fig 1

Distribution of Wuhan receiving medical personnel from provinces and cities in mainland China during the outbreak of pneumonia caused by 2019-nCoV. (The number of medical personnel were shown (White circle) from 29 provinces and cities in mainland China transferred to Wuhan as of January 30th, 2020. The data on confirmed cases (Colored block) were obtained from the websites of Chinese National Health Commissions).

Huoshenshan Hospital is a specialized hospital established in the Wuhan Staff Sanatorium.

Patients with confirmed coronavirus pneumonia have been admitted to our hospital. It has a total of 1000 beds, and includes an intensive care unit, an ordinary care unit, a laboratory, and radiology and other auxiliary departments. According to the National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China, the related design scheme of the institute was completed on January 24, 2020. Construction of the hospital began on January 29th, and the hospital was completed and put into use on February 2nd. The Chinese People's Liberation Army has transferred 1400 medical personnel to undertake the task of helping people infected with the virus.

We firmly believe that Chinese medical personnel and people throughout the country can work together to win this defensive battle with one heart and one mind.

References


Articles from The Journal of Infection are provided here courtesy of Elsevier

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