Wuhan's experience in fighting against COVID-19:How to prevent COVID-19 infection among health care workers / 中国感染控制杂志

ABSTRACT

In the context of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)pandemic,thousands of health care wor- kers (HCWs)worldwide infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),some even have lost their lives.At the early stage of the epidemic,some Chinese HCWs were infected.Owing to limited knowledge of characteristics of SARS-CoV-2,more than 3,000 HCWs in Hubei Province contracted SARS-CoV-2 at the early stage of the outbreak.Due to overloaded work of HCWs in local hospitals,more than 42,000 HCWs (including HCWs from the military)were dispatched to Hubei Province from all over the country.At the peak of epidemic,one in 10 intensive care HCWs in China were working in Wuhan.During fighting against COVID-19 in China,although a certain number of HCWs were infected with SARS-CoV-2 at the early stages of the epidemic, effective prevention was achieved through timely adoption of prevention measures,including fast diagnosis,timely isolation of patients,strengthening of HCWs'safety,intensified training on basic protective knowledge and unified management of HCWs,there was no report about infection among the 42,632 members of the national medical teams sent to Hubei,and the number of COVID-19 cases among HCWs in local hospitals also significantly de- creased,thereby indicating that healthcare-associated infection (HAI)of COVID-19 among HCWs are fully pre- ventable.This paper explores how to prevent HCWs from contracting SARS-CoV-2 through effective measures during the epidemic in Wuhan,China.