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The Doctor Who First Reported 2019-nCoV Infection
Tracking how the 2019 novel coronavirus was found
By Wen Qing  ·  2020-02-07  ·   Source: Web Exclusive

Zhang Jixian, the first doctor to report the novel coronavirus infection in Wuhan, was awarded a merit for her performance in the fight against the pneumonia epidemic on February 6 by the Human Resources and Social Security Department and Health Commission of Hubei Province in central China. 

Zhang is the director of the department of respiratory and critical medicine care at Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine. The hospital is one of the two tertiary hospitals closest to the South China Seafood Market, where the novel coronavirus is thought to have started.   

On December 26, Zhang began work in the consulting room as usual. But her normal day was disrupted when she saw the chest CT scans of an elderly couple who came to her with symptoms of fever and cough. Their scans showed a different type of viral pneumonia.  

This alarmed Zhang immediately. She asked the couple to call their son to come in for testing, and his chest CT scan came out the same. “Generally speaking, when a family comes to a doctor, there is only one patient. Three people do not normally get the same disease at the same time unless it is infectious,” Zhang told Wuhan Evening News. 

The next day, after a series of exams to rule out the possibility of the flu, Zhang decided to report these conditions to the president of the hospital and suggest multi-departmental consultations. 

On December 29, the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention received the report and initiated an epidemiological investigation, later confirmed as novel coronavirus pneumonia.  

The family was hospitalized and to avoid possible human-to-human transmission, Zhang set aside an area in a ward for them and later set up an isolation ward. 

Moreover, she asked all respiratory clinicians to wear N95 facemasks and ordered 30 overalls of fine canvas, which they wore under their normal white coats. These overalls were replaced by protective suits on January 20, when virologist Zhong Nanshan specified it could indeed be transmitted from human to human.  

Zhang’s keen sense of protection proved to be crucial. To date, no medical staff in her department has been infected with the virus and no cross infection between patients has occurred.  

Her experience and common sense came from fighting against the severe acute respiratory infection (SARS) outbreak in 2003. At that time, Zhang was 37 years old and a member of the expert group in Jianghan District of Wuhan. Her daily task was to go to various hospitals to search for people suspected of being infected.  

Since then, Zhang has acquired a good sense of public health events. “So when I found the patients were all related to the South China Seafood Market, I knew right away something was wrong. This thought process was developed during the SARS period." 

Under the care and treatment of Zhang and her colleagues, the couple’s son recovered and was able to leave the hospital on January 7, while his parents were transferred to another designated hospital for further treatment.  

Copyedited by Rebeca Toledo 

Comments to wenqing@bjreview.com 

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