Solidarity in a crisis
- By Li Xiaoyu
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail China Africa, April 9, 2020
Silent, devastating and moving freely – diseases have no borders and viruses don't carry passports. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of March 11, the new coronavirus had infected more than 118,000 people in 114 countries and regions, leaving 4,291 people dead. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference held in Geneva on the same day that COVID-19 could now be termed a pandemic. He called on the international community on several occasions to unite to overcome this new health crisis facing humanity.
In China, the curve of coronavirus infections seems to have waned over the last several weeks.
In response to the virus' threatening advance in many countries, also on March 11, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced that China was ready to contribute to the global fight. In fact, the battle fought in China from the very start of the epidemic opened a window of opportunity for the rest of the world.
Open source data
On December 30, 2019, the Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic in China, submitted the first samples taken from infected patients to the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Only 72 hours later, the complete sequencing of the new virus genome had been completed. Soon after, a genomic comparison confirmed that Wuhan was dealing with a completely new coronavirus. Having the genome sequence is like having access to the virus' Big Data, which makes it possible to understand its development and track its possible mutations.
The institute was quick to share this key information with the rest of the world. On January 12, it submitted the data to the WHO before publishing it on the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) portal. The WHO praised the speed with which China detected the epidemic and sequenced the genome before sharing it with the world, calling it "very impressive." On January 30, at a press conference held in Geneva, the WHO chief hailed "China's commitment to transparency and support for other countries."
But the research doesn't stop there. To better understand the characteristics of the virus, Chinese researchers still had to isolate the viral strains. As explained by Li Lanjuan, an epidemiologist and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, this process will form the basis for future vaccine development, detection of antiviral drugs and the development of reagents for rapid detection. Researchers at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention managed to isolate the virus as early as January 7, just five days after receiving the samples.
On January 24, information related to this first isolated viral strain, its image taken by an electron microscope, as well as the primers and probes for the detection of COVID-19 through nucleic acid testing were made public on the website of the National Microbiology Data Center (NMDC). Through a service system on novel coronavirus science and technology resources launched on the same day on the website, people can get related information freely. Just three hours later, CNN reported this information. The next day, Reuters asked for the right to reproduce the electron micrograph of the virus. According to Ma Juncai, Director of the NMDC, who is also one of the designers of the service system, people can now take advantage of this platform, to track the progress of Chinese research on the virus.
"It shows just how open our studies are," he told China Science Daily. Within 10 days of its launch, the system had already received 6.25 million visits, many of which came from international research institutes.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)