MOSCOW, April 14. /TASS/. Moscow and Chinese specialists will share their experience in fighting the coronavirus infection, Moscow Deputy Mayor Anastasia Rakova said Tuesday.
"There are Chinese epidemiologists and infection medics in Moscow who have already won their own coronavirus fight in China. They now help our Russian medics within the international experience exchange program, they provide consultations and proposals on how to isolate people, how to diagnose the disease, how to treat it," Rakova said. "They have stayed in Moscow for several days already, conducting working meetings and sharing their experience in our city hospitals, such as the Filatov hospital number 15 and the Kommunarka hospital. We have a full clinic committee and I hope that our discussion of all issues and share of accumulated experience will be very productive."
Head of Moscow Health Department Alexey Khripun noted that Moscow specialists also have something to share with the Chinese colleagues. According to Khripun, Moscow medics can diagnose the coronavirus, based on specific clinic signs in conjunction with computer tomography results. Besides, recommendations of the Russian Ministry of Health and the Moscow Health Department include a virus treatment procedure for patients with heavy infection form.
"Today, we will share opinions on a wide array of issues of theoretical and practical nature, including epidemiology, virology, diagnostics and treatment, infection sources, transmission ways, isolation and quarantine methods," Khripun said. I believe that this communication will provide us with new options to protect the residents of Moscow and Russian citizens from [the coronavirus]."
According to Khripun, Moscow has a certain reserve of beds for coronavirus patients; there is also a schedule for deployment of new hospitals, and incidence predictions.
He claimed that all hospital personnel have been provided with enough personal protection equipment.
Besides, medics who will be able to treat the coronavirus in future, currently undergo training.
Deployment of a large hospital of 500 to 1,000 beds is not a single day’s work and preparations must be done in advance, he underscored.
The Chinese delegation
According to Kaili Wang, senior medical officer from Heilongjiang Province Center for Disease Control, after the meeting scheduled for Tuesday, the Chinese experts will continue cooperation and exchange of experience with their Russian counterparts, which he believes will be useful for both Moscow and Russia in general.
"We have been in Moscow for three days already, and we hold the work and the measures taken by the Government of the Russian Federation and of the city of Moscow in high esteem. We also praise preparations made to fight the coronavirus spread. I think that situations in Moscow and China are similar in this fight, including similar stages and patterns of virus spread," Kaili said.
In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 1,900,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 119,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 453,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
To date, a total of 21,102 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 1,694 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 170 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.