After the detection of first Covid-19 case on December 20 in Wuhan, China resorted to Military Medical Response strategy and reversed the disease spread trend in over two months with the comprehensive disease management system.
Under MMRS, role and responsibility of each and every administrative unit/communist party offices at various levels were clearly outlined.
Shaking hands has been declared as a Penal offence, quantum of punishment yet to be decided.
Beijing roped in two million doctors and classified four types of quarantine facilities-Community, Medical, Intensive case and Critical care and also subjected the quarantined individuals to engage in yoga and other games in order to keep them active, according to specialists tracking health intelligence in the region.
However, initially the disease was assessed to be normal viral disease/fever and antibiotics were prescribed to the patients for three days but the post mortem report revealed the severity and realizing that there was no medical protocol available to treat the disease, China informed the entire world on the outbreak of Covid-19 and sought their cooperation, sources said, adding 160 countries are cooperating with Beijing in various ways to contain the pandemic. . As a first step, China constructed a 1000-bed hospital in Wuhan and subsequently,13 more hospitals of similar strength were erected and adopted Emergency Medical Response Strategy but switched to Military Medical Response Strategy in view of the severity of the outbreak, they said. Single party rule in China obligates each citizen to undergo communist party training and take military training for 30 days, making them obliged to follow SOPs for such situations, a reason why China was able to reverse the trend.
India and Pakistan have general proclivity to disobey rules and it will be more difficult to contain the outbreak in these countries, a source said.
SOPs included surgical masks, clothing for countering pathogens provided to doctors and paramedic as 10 per cent medical staff got infected during the course of treatment of patients. Patients were kept busy with exercises like yoga and other indoor games developed for inmates of quarantine facilities.
As part of the MMRS, entire country was mapped in terms of intensity of outbreak and medical resources were mobilised accordingly.
Streamlined response system helped in reversing the trend. As on March 3, fresh cases in China were lower than Europe and other Asian countries. On March 3, 206 cases were reported in China and 386 cases were reported in Europe/Asia (minus China), sources tracking the developments in China said, adding large quarantine facilities with clear strategy defining the roles and responsibilities at each level.