On the evening of February 19, three experts from the Central Steering Group of Medical Treatment and Rescue, including Tong Zhaohui, Vice President of Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Jiang Rongmeng, Chief Physician of the Department of Infection of Beijing Ditan Hospital, and Wu Anhua, Director of the Department of Infection Control of Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, held a press conference on the treatment of severe cases of New Coronary Pneumonia. However, the disease and death rate is lower than SARS.
New coronavirus attacks multiple organs
Tong Zhaohui arrived in Wuhan on January 18, and through this month of front-line treatment experience, he compared the new coronavirus with SARS in terms of age, disease onset progression, and affected organs.
Unlike the SARS patient population, which is mainly young and middle-aged, the severely ill patients with New Coronavirus are mainly older than 50 years old, and this population mostly has underlying diseases such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. In terms of the pathogenesis process, patients with neoconiosis progress more rapidly, and the development of hypoxia is evident, which can quickly progress to respiratory failure if not well controlled.
In addition, unlike SARS patients whose involvement is concentrated in the lungs, the New Coronavirus attacks not only the lungs but also the heart, kidneys, intestines and many other organs, causing multi-organ failure. Because of this, it is more difficult to save patients with severe New Coronavirus pneumonia than SARS patients.
We propose to pay close attention to the changes in the condition of mild, common type patients, such as heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen and other indicators. Shifting the treatment port forward will improve the success rate of saving critically ill patients.
The disease death rate will be effectively controlled
The Consensus on the Treatment and Management of Severe Novel Coronavirus Infection Pneumonia mentions that critically ill patients need to use ECMO (extracorporeal membrane lung device) after meeting certain indications, is the device sufficient?
Tong Zhaohui said, “Zhongnan Hospital, Jinyintan Hospital and Pulmonary Hospital were the first three hospitals to admit critically ill and critically ill patients, and so far there are about 20 cases of patients using ECMO,” explaining that the extracorporeal membrane lung device is a means of life support, not a treatment, and not all critically ill patients need to use extracorporeal Membrane lung.
Although it is more difficult to treat critically ill patients with New Coronary Pneumonia than SARS, the rate of death from New Coronary Pneumonia is much lower compared to the 10% death rate from SARS.
In addition, Tongji Zhongfa New City Campus, Tongji Guanggu Campus, Wuda People’s Hospital East Campus, and Wuhan Union Hospital West Campus are also listed as hospitals for the treatment of critically ill and critically ill patients. On the question of whether patients can receive the same level of medical treatment, experts said not to worry. Now that a national team of experts is rushing to Wuhan, the entire ICU ward is contracted, national professional teams are visiting and touring the hospital, multidisciplinary consultations and death case discussions are being held, the rate of death of critically ill patients will be effectively controlled.
No need to panic too much about the spread of aerosols
For the public’s concern about the spread of aerosols, Jiang Rongmeng gave an explanation. “Aerosol transmission has two qualifications: the first is confined space, and the second is high concentration.” In a relatively closed environment for a long time exposure to high concentrations of aerosol situation there is the possibility of being infected. Hospital wards, especially ICU wards, are high-risk areas, and the threat is mainly to health care workers, who are not very accessible to the general public.
“The public need not be too panic about the spread of aerosols.” Jiang Rongmeng reminded that insisting on wearing masks, washing hands regularly and disinfecting more often are still the best preventive measures. At home, you can pay attention to more ventilation, which can blow away the virus particles floating in the air and reduce the concentration.
Content source: Changjiang Daily