Editor’s note : In addition to the three positions that everyone is familiar with in the past two years, the leader of the Shanghai New Coronary Pneumonia Treatment Expert Team, the director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases Medicine, and the director of the Department of Infectious Diseases of Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, Dr. Zhang Wenhong also has an identity that is not known to the public. But it is well known in the industry – tuberculosis experts.
As early as the 1990s, Zhang Wenhong, who had just entered Huashan Hospital, set his sights on tuberculosis, and went to the University of Hong Kong and Harvard University successively. School of Medicine conducts relevant academic research. This also makes him, like many infectious disease doctors, familiar with the past and present of tuberculosis.
One of Zhang Wenhong’s scientific achievements is the diagnosis and treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis and other difficult tuberculosis. Zhang Wenhong graduated from Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University(former Shanghai Medical University)‘s doctoral dissertation “A series of studies on the katG gene mutation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and its resistance to isoniazid”. Research on tuberculosis.
TB is a highly contagious respiratory disease, In a sense, it is a match for the new crown. However, tuberculosis is not a viral disease, it will spread to many people, but after many people are infected, they will have no symptoms. If their resistance is strong enough, they will become latent or hidden tuberculosis.
Data show that about 360 million people in China are infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. There is about a 5% to 10% chance of developing tuberculosis in a lifetime. However, latently infected people do not have TB-related symptoms and signs and are not contagious.
At the beginning of the last century, there was a popular saying of “ten tuberculosis and nine deaths”. At that time, tuberculosis was the cause of death in China. most diseases. Today, pulmonary tuberculosis still ranks second in the number of morbidity and deaths in China’s statutory reportable Class A and B infectious diseases.
“It can be said that the COVID-19 pandemic has wiped out most of what we have achieved in global tuberculosis control over the past 10 to 15 years. Achievements.” Qian Bingzhong, deputy director of the Tuberculosis Program of the Gates Foundation, mentioned in a speech at the 2nd Tuberculosis and Pulmonary Disease Prevention and Control Forum hosted by the “Chinese Journal of Antituberculosis” held on April 22, the WHO The organization estimates the TB death rate will rise for the first time since 2005.
“But the prevention and control of the new crown epidemic may lead to the elimination of tuberculosis in China Qian Bingzhong said that before the epidemic of COVID-19, many cities and counties in China did not have a diagnostic network for rapid molecular detection of tuberculosis and drug resistance, but the epidemic has prompted molecular detection capabilities in almost all parts of China, and China can now quickly collect Thousands or even millions of clinical samples are subjected to high-throughput molecular testing. “The new crown epidemic will eventually pass, but this system can continue to help tuberculosis prevention and control.”
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