China Shares Coronavirus Treatment Protocol With Botswana
Mbongeni Mguni | Monday March 16, 2020 16:57
By yesterday, nearly 160,000 cases of the virus had been reported globally, with almost 6,000 deaths including seven in Africa. However, about 80,000 people have recovered from the disease, while researchers across the world race to develop a vaccine.
Responding to The Monitor enquiries during a briefing on Friday, Yanbo said treatment options being used in China, where 67,000 people have recovered from the disease, had been shared with Botswana. The options are contained in a Diagnosis and Treatment Protocol for Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia being used as the basis for treatment in China.
“China has so far published seven guidelines on coronavirus diagnosis and treatment and six guidelines on prevention and control, all of which have been translated into multiple foreign languages,” Yanbo said during the briefing, done via a live WhatsApp group.
“We have discussed our work against the epidemic in video conferences with the African Union, European Union and others and we are planning to have a video conference with the Africa Centre for Disease Control and some African countries this week.
“We will continue exchanges and mutual learning with other countries and international organisations to jointly enhance regional and global capacity in safeguarding public health security.”
He added: “Both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier LI Keqiang have attached great importance to the treatment of severe patients. At the initial stage of the outbreak, we didn’t have enough beds for them, so we built two specialised hospitals with 2,500 beds to provide timely treatment to patients.
“We also tried combining Chinese medicine with Western medicine in the treatment which turned out to be quite effective.”
According to the Protocol, treatment options depend on the severity of the disease and range from bed rest with sufficient calorific intake, to antiviral therapy and respiratory support.
Other recommended treatment options for severe cases include convalescent plasma treatment, immunotherapy and blood purification treatment. The Protocol also provides various Traditional Chinese Medicine options for the virus according to severity of the case.
The sharing of treatment options is expected to take centre stage soon, as the coronavirus draws closer and closer to local shores. By Sunday, South Africa had confirmed 51 cases, while Namibia reported its first two.
Local authorities are drawing comfort from the fact that the cases reported in neighbouring countries are at present all ‘imported’ meaning coming from international travellers, rather than ‘community transmissions’ meaning cases being spread by contact at local level.
However, President Mokgweetsi Masisi, in a televised address to the country on Thursday night, stressed that government’s position was to view the virus’ arrival in Botswana, not as a question of “if” but “when”.
Government has rolled its response and preparedness plan for the virus including identification of treatment centres across the districts, boosting of local testing and diagnosis, as well as enhanced screening at all ports of entry.
It is expected that government will soon announce a broader list of countries from whom all arrivals into Botswana will be required to self-isolate. At present, only arrivals from China are required to do so.