Hong Kong's Secret For Having Low Rates of COVID-19 Infection

Almost two decades have passed since the first SARS-CoV epidemic wreaked havoc to Hong Kong, and for many, it was an eye-opener. Thanks to that experience, top pandemic doctor Yuen Kwok-Yung has learned how to address this year's pandemic properly.

According to Yuen, an early, aggressive hospitalization and treatment of infected individuals will minimize spreading of the disease and death. It seems that way is effective as Hong Kong only records 2% COVID-19 fatality rate as of Friday.

Although most practices these days are mainly for severe cases, for Yuen, admitting patients to the hospital with the minimal disease is still a top priority to isolate, monitor, and treatment, Deccan Herald reported.

"In places like the U.K. and U.S., usually if you have mild symptoms, you are not admitted to a hospital at all - you just wait at home until you feel very bad or you have shortness of breath," he explained over Zoom from his office. "But we basically admit any patients, even without much symptoms, into the hospital for isolation."

Yuen's strategy helped reduce the transmission in the community, and patients were able to receive treatment under experimental trials after developing symptoms. As the patient's viral load is high during the early days of the infection, it is important to address it immediately to prevent more cases and deaths.

Lessons From 2003 SARS-CoV

Yuen is a renowned microbiologist, surgeon, and physician having dealt with various infectious outbreaks in Hong Kong, such as the H5N1 strain of avian flu and 2003 SARS which spread throughout the city after a patient from Guangzhou, China visited Hong Kong.

Yuen recalls that they were doing a trial and error in saving the SARS patients' lives inflicted by a disease caused by another type of coronavirus.

At that time, he realized that there is a ticking time bomb in the environment that he predicted could cause a more deadly pandemic than the 2003 SARS. That prediction came true in December 2019 when patients in Wuhan, China was inflicted by unknown pneumonia.

As preparation, Hong kong prepared tests and advised their citizens to wear masks. Meanwhile, in Yuen's lab, they were already researching the human-to-human transmission of the virus that happened among family members.

Yuen finally joined the WHO-China Joint Mission to investigate the country's response. Since then, he and his lab has reported many cases and significant findings like the world's first confirmed SARS-CoV-2 reinfection.

He said that the COVID-19 is an extension of the 2003 SARS. Hong Kong doctors have been using several experimental treatments to treat COVID-19 patients by using antivirals like ribavirin and Kaletra, and also convalescent plasma.

A Cocktail of Therapies

Yuen acknowledges the fact that no single treatment or therapy can solve COVID-19 infection. Instead, he advocates using a cocktail therapy to get good results. By giving a combination of antivirals and interferon to the patients during the first week of infection, it could reduce the time for clearing the virus by six days and shortens the hospitalization by a week.

That is according to their study published in May in the journal The Lancet which involved 127 patients from February 10 to March 20, more than 50% of the cases in Hong Kong during that time.

Yuen said that the memory of SARS from almost two decades ago made it easier for most patients in Hong Kong to receive the antiviral treatment, which resulted in a high recruitment rate for the study.