A conference to commend feats of the novel coronavirus pandemic was held at 10 a.m. on September 8 in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Chinese President Xi Jinping presented the prizes to the winning delegates at the conference and delivered an important speech. The conference commended advanced individuals, advanced collectives, excellent Communist Party members and advanced grassroots party organizations for fighting COVID-19 nationwide.
SCU's Zong'an Liang, Yan Kang, Zhiyong Zong, Rongsheng Luan and Yuquan Wei were awarded the title of "National Advanced Individual Against COVID-19". Zong'an Liang and Yan Kang won the title of "National Excellent Communist Party Member", and West China Hospital(WCH), Sichuan University was awarded the title of "National Advanced Group Against COVID-19".
After the outbreak of the pandemic, SCU immediately sent medical teams to assist the epidemic prevention and control in Hubei Province. The West China Hospital of Sichuan University sent 175 medical staff, mainly responsible for 3 wards and 99 beds of Wuhan Red Cross Hospital, and 80 beds in 2 critical wards of the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University (east campus). A total of 667 people were treated, 354 were cured and 223 were transferred out. The medical team of West China Second University Hospital treated 92 COVID-19 patients including 35 critically ill patients, 72 of whom were discharged. West China Fourth Hospital sent 12 medical professionals to assist in the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University(east campus), and they were mainly responsible for the treatment of severe and critically ill patients. In the meantime, the affiliated hospitals of the university actively organized experts to provide guidance for on-the-spot treatment in hospitals around the province, and built a remote consultation platform covering more than 200 designated hospitals in the whole province. The medical professionals conducted remote consultation for dozens of medical institutions in Hubei, Guizhou, Anhui, Yunnan and other provinces. They also traveled to Heilongjiang, Xinjiang to assist in COVID-19 prevention and control. Moreover, In accordance with the Chinese government’s deployment and arrangement, WCH organized medical workers to go to Italy, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Azerbaijan and provided international assistance in the fight against the pandemic, making important contributions to the global anti COVID-19 campaign and winning acclaim from the international community.
The university has pooled forces from multiple disciplines of the liberal arts, science, engineering and medicine to vigorously carry out scientific research on COVID-19 prevention and control. SCU built an interdisciplinary big data research platform for novel coronavirus. The university took the lead in scientific research projects of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology, and launched 40 self-financing emergency research projects. The medical staff tackled key problems regarding clinical treatment, drug and vaccine research and development, testing, epidemiology, psychological intervention, and social governance. The recombinant protein COVID-19 vaccine developed by WCH's State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy was approved by the National Medical Products Administration on August 21. The vaccine was found to have a good protective effect againstSARS-CoV-2in monkeys, and no distinct side effects were observed. Prior to this, researchers from this laboratory published a research paper in Nature on July 29. That is the first research paper on novel coronavirus vaccine that Nature has published since the outbreak this year.
Winners of the “National Advanced Individual Against COVID-19 (5 SCU Faculty members)
Zong’an Liang, director, the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, West China Hospital, SCU
Yan Kang, director, the Department of Critical Care Medicine, West China Hospital, SCU
Zhiyong Zong, director, the Department of Infection Control, WCH
Rongsheng Luan, professor, West China School of Public Health (West China Fourth University)
Yuquan Wei, director, the State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, WCH
The National Advanced Group Against COVID-19 (one work unit from Sichuan University)
West China Hospital, Sichuan University
