On April 18, the online work day continued. Despite Saturday, it was busy in a businesslike way. In the morning, a COVID-19 patient care training was held, and at 11 o’clock a meeting began with the deputy akims of regions and cities of Kazakhstan, as well as with the heads of regional and city hospitals to discuss the experience of Chinese doctors in combating coronavirus infection at the national and regional levels of People's Republic of China.

The meeting was moderated by a freelance infectious disease specialist of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Vice-Rector of Medical University, Professor B.N. Kosherova and from the Chinese side - Deputy Governor of the Ili-Kazakh Autonomous Region of China, Mr. Yershat Tursyn.

In his opening speech, the head of the Chinese delegation noted that Kazakhstan provided support to China during the difficult period of the outbreak in the Hubei province. And now, in accordance with the agreement between President Xi Jinping and President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Zhomart Tokaev, a team of Chinese specialists has arrived in Kazakhstan to work with the Kazakh side to fight with COVID-19.

The speaker noted that Kazakhstan took the pandemic problem very seriously, and almost all forces are involved in the fight against it, so the results, according to the guest, can be called good.

Dr. Lu Chen noted the organization of the response to the epidemic in China. “We became a single organism,” the speaker said, “and understood the important truth that prevention is more important than treatment. It is the laws of infection prevention that formed the basis of the organizational measures and guidelines that were developed to fight with COVID-19 in China. As the doctor noted, the guidelines are identical to our clinical protocols. Chinese experts released seven such manuals during the time of the infection that was raging in Wuhan.

The experience of working with patients allowed us to come to a generalization of four important requirements, four early actions: identification-warning-isolation-treatment. Dr. Lu Chen explained in detail how these four rules are working. At the same time, under the notification is meant, first of all, informing higher authorities for making timely decisions of an organizational nature. Thus, throughout China, notification of a new infection should be carried out within the first two hours. 

Another important result that Chinese colleagues consider it important to share is the conclusion about the need for unification, or "concentration." The speaker explained this with examples. First of all, it is necessary to concentrate on the statistics of patients and the nature of the lesion, it is constantly updated, but the development of events should be correctly predicted. The second point of concentration is the combination of hospital capacities, or their concentration. So in the Xinjian Uygur region, 207 medical institutions were allocated, which were focused only on the treatment of patients with COVID-19. This allows for greater treatment effectiveness, helps to prevent the widespread spread of infection through hospitals and reduces costs. 

The fourth point is the concentration of material resources and equipment. All the necessary types of equipment must be collected in medical institutions determined by the leadership and order of the authorized bodies: mechanical ventilation devices, Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, a sufficient number of analyzers, laboratory devices, consumables, and personal protective equipment.

It is very important that the equipment is the most modern which will including both air disinfection devices and equipment that creates negative pressure in the patient rooms of COVID-19. By the way, such equipment for creating negative pressure is used in China not only for hospitals where patients with COVID-19 are treated, but also in ambulances.

An interesting lively discussion took place on all issues, many details were clarified and points of view were compared.