Islamabad, Apr. 15 (INP): A video conference on COVID-19 prevention and treatment was jointly held by medical staff of Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar and healthcare professionals (HCPs) from China’s Jiangsu Province Hospital. 

We hope that Jiangsu Province Hospital could share views on its prevention and control, and guide us on clinical diagnosis and treatment,” said a doctor from Lady Reading Hospital.  

According to Gwadar Pro App, so far a total of 865 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province with the highest coronavirus case fatality rate in the country. According to Zhao Jun, the Director of Jiangsu Province Hospital, Chinese medical experts on emergency management, infectious diseases and gastroenterology shared their experience with their Pakistani counterparts on topics of “Screening, diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 patients”, “Public health management of healthcare personnel” and “Practice of endoscopy during COVID-19 pandemic”. Mr. Zhao further mentioned that medical staff of Jiangsu Province Hospital acquired new experience during the battle against COVID-19, therefore they wish to help their iron-clad Pakistani friends to tackle the pandemic and save lives. On top of knowledge sharing, medics from both countries completed a remote consultation of a critically ill COVID-19 patient in Lady Reading Hospital. 

As per one of Lady Reading Hospital’s doctors, the 47-year-old case had a recent travel history to England, and developed symptoms like fever, dry cough and tachypnea.  

Being confirmed as a COVID-19 case on March 19, the patient was moved to intensive care unit four days later. Doctors had performed endotracheal intubation on the mechanically-ventilated patient. “Is our treatment effective? What should we do next...” Questions on prevention, control and treatment of COVID-19 were raised by medics in Lady Reading Hospital during the meeting and addressed one by one by Prof. Huang Mao, head of the Chinese government's anti-epidemic medical team to Venezuela, and Prof. Li Jun, director of Jiangsu Province Hospital’s Department of Infectious Diseases. "With the rapid spread of COVID-19 worldwide, we are receiving more and more remote consultation invitations from overseas hospitals, which we take very seriously,” Zhao Jun noted, “We will help more overseas medical institutions via the remote consultation platform by sharing experience, so as to combat the epidemic jointly."  

INP/Javed