Welcome to english.eastday.com.Today is
Follow us @
Contribute to us!

Latest

Shanghai

Business

Culture

China

World

Pictures

Topics

Life

Services

Home >> auto >> Article
Testing on deceased coronavirus patients offers new hope for the living
From:Shine  |  2020-02-20 16:29

Editor's note:

Many Shanghai medical workers are already in or on their way to support Wuhan, a city now severely stricken by the novel coronavirus outbreak. They are called "the most beautiful people who are going in the reverse direction than most others" by the public. They are combating the new epidemic on the frontline to protect people in the nation. Some of them shared their work experience in Wuhan with Shanghai Daily.

The death toll of novel coronavirus pneumonia patients hit nearly 1,600 in the epidemic-stricken city of Wuhan on Wednesday, which accounts for most of the fatalities wrought by the lethal epidemic.

The tradition in China is to be buried with the body fully intact. Some grieving families though have agreed to donate the bodies of their deceased loved ones for medical research, in the hopes of benefiting those who are still among the living.

Experts at Wuhan’s Jinyintan Hospital now have completed dissection on two novel coronavirus pneumonia patients’ bodies and sent collected samples for testing.

Zha Qiongfang, a doctor from Shanghai’s Renji Hospital dispatched to Wuhan, met with the families who made this commendable contribution.

"On Saturday night, when I went off duty and handed over my work to the night shift, I told them that patients in the ward were mostly in stable condition, except for one elderly man, whose health indicators had tested poorly that afternoon," Zha said.

Shortly thereafter, she heard the news that the man suffered a sudden cardiac arrest and died. Before long, another message came: the man's family offered his body for dissection. This would be the first such contribution of an expired COVID-19 patient's body in China since the outbreak began.

"Currently, we mainly use clinical symptoms to deduce pathological changes in the human body triggered by the COVID-19 virus. This is not based on pathological evidence. The family's decision will be a huge leap for our understanding of novel coronavirus pneumonia."

Zha believes that the patient's anatomy will help medical workers learn about the pathogenicity and lethality of the virus, which can provide references for saving more critical patients in the future.

On the following day, the family of another deceased patient consented to dissection as well.

"My gratitude for these two families is beyond words and I think all people in Wuhan and in the country should thank them for this decision. I'm grateful to them because although they are in pain, they still decide to make a selfless contribution."

Share