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They remembered how the coronavirus arose from an apparently ordinary case. (Figurative).
Beijing / Wuhan:
The deadly coronavirus that has overwhelmed China and the world was discovered in an elderly couple in December last year in Wuhan through a CT scan performed by Zhang Jixian, a doctor, official media reported on Friday, calling her for alerting authorities about the vicious virus
Since its appearance, the virus that has so far killed at least 145,000 worldwide and infected more than 2.1 million has become a source of concern and controversy, as China has yet to disclose the details of its source. origin. In China alone, 4,632 people died from COVID-19 and 82,692 cases were reported.
On December 26, an elderly couple from a nearby community visited the Hubei Provincial Hospital for Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, Zhang, a veteran respiratory physician at a Wuhan hospital, recalled how coronavirus, an alien pathogen facing humanity , arose from an apparently ordinary species. case in which it was claimed that it was the first official version of China at the time of the discovery of the disease.
Since the virus came to light, there has been great interest in the world about COVID-19’s “zero” case that could shed light on how it emerged from what is believed to be an animal to be human and then progressed towards transmission. from human to human.
China faced criticism from the United States and other countries for revealing very little about the virus that spread to Wuhan and the world as a forest fire.
In shedding light on the first case, Ms. Zhang, director of the hospital’s department of respiratory medicine and intensive care, recalled that the elderly couple’s symptoms included fever, cough, and tiredness, which “seemed like the flu or common pneumonia.” .
But when his CT scans reached Zhang the next day, the 54-year-old doctor noted characteristics that are different from the flu or common pneumonia, the state news agency Xinhua reported.
Ms. Zhang’s experience during the 2003 SARS outbreak, when she was working as a medical expert in investigating suspected patients in Wuhan, made her sensitive to signs of an epidemic. After reading the CT images of the elderly couple, he summoned his son, also demanding a CT scan.
“At first, his son refused to be examined. He showed no symptoms or discomfort, and believed that we were trying to trick him,” said Zhang.
It was Ms. Zhang’s insistence that brought him the second evidence: the son’s lungs showed the same abnormalities as his parents.
“All three members of a family are unlikely to contract the same disease at the same time, unless it is an infectious disease,” Zhang told Xinhua.
Also on December 27, the hospital received another patient who also developed cough and fever symptoms and showed the same lung images on the CT scan.
Blood tests of the four indicated viral infections. Zhang also prescribed a series of influenza-related tests. Everything turned out negative.
That day, he filed a report with the hospital, which soon sent it to the district center for disease control and prevention. “The report is about how we discovered a viral disease, probably infectious,” he said.
Back then, Ms. Zhang could not know that it was one of the first medical reports of an epidemic that “spread faster, caused the most extensive infections and was the most difficult to contain since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. in 1949. “
After presenting the report, Ms. Zhang cordoned off an area in the department room to hospitalize the four patients. He then demanded doctors in the ward to increase self-protection.
The arrival of three other patients with similar lung images in the next two days further alarmed the hospital, which on December 29 convened a panel of 10 experts to discuss the seven cases, according to the report.
Their conclusion that the situation was extraordinary, plus information from two similar cases in other hospitals, led the hospital to report directly to municipal and provincial health authorities.
Upon receiving the report, authorities the same day ordered an epidemiological investigation. That night, experts from Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital, a hospital designated to treat communicable diseases, visited Ms. Zhang’s hospital and searched for six of the seven patients.
That day, Zhang ordered all respiratory doctors and nurses to wear masks, a precaution believed to help achieve zero infection from doctors in the department between the end of December and January 30.
According to an official timeline released on April 6 on China’s response to COVID-19, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission on December 30 sent an urgent notification to medical institutions under its jurisdiction of an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown cause in the city.
In February, the Hubei Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security and the Provincial Health Commission honored Ms. Zhang for her exemplary service, calling her “the first to report the epidemic in the province” and recognizing her leadership and hard work. I work in the hospital fight. against COVID-19.
The doctor, however, tried to minimize the honor.
“I was doing what a doctor was supposed to do, driven by professionalism,” he said.
