1. School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China 2. Department of Infectious Diseases, Zhejiang Provincial Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Hangzhou 310000, China 3. Department of Public Health, SUNY College at Old Westbury, Old Westbury, NY 11568, USA 4. School of International and Public Affairs, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200025, China 5. Department of Infectious Diseases, Jinyintan Hospital, Wuhan 430030, China 6. Key Laboratory of Medical Genomics, Shanghai Institute of Hematology, National Research Center for Translational Medicine, Ruijin Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China
The outbreak of a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19, caused by the 2019-nCoV infection) in December 2019 is one of the most severe public health emergencies since the founding of People’s Republic of China in 1949. Healthcare personnel (HCP) nationwide are facing heavy workloads and high risk of infection, especially those who care for patients in Hubei Province. Sadly, as of February 20, 2020, over two thousand COVID-19 cases are confirmed among HCP from 476 hospitals nationwide, with nearly 90% of them from Hubei Province. Based on literature search and interviews with some HCP working at Wuhan, capital city of Hubei, we have summarized some of the effective measures taken to reduce infection among HCP, and also made suggestions for improving occupational safety during an infectious disease outbreak. The experience and lessons learned should be a valuable asset for international health community to contain the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic around the world.
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