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Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor (right) visits the Infectious Disease Centre of the Princess Margaret Hospital on Sunday to inspect the isolation ward under renovation. INFORMATION SERVICES DEPARTMENT CORONAVIRUS HK CE inspects prevention works By LI BINGCUN in Hong Kong [email protected] Hong Kong Chief Executive Car- rie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on Sun- day inspected key sites of the city’s efforts to prevent and control the novel coronavirus, which has infect- ed 57 people in the SAR. According to a government state- ment, she visited three major facili- ties of the ongoing anti-epidemic work, accompanied by Food and Health Secretary Sophia Chan Siu- chee and Development Secretary Michael Wong Wai-lun. Lam visited the Junior Police Call center in Yuen Long Pat Heung — a facility that is being renovated into a new quarantine center. Once in operation, the city will provide 90 sites by the end of February and could provide another 100 by April. Lam also visited the Shenzhen Bay checkpoint. It is one of the city’s three remaining boundary cross- ings that are still open. Earlier, the government closed 11 checkpoints to reduce the cross-boundary flow of people. At the checkpoint, Lam was informed of the implementation situation of the mandatory quaran- tine measure. Since Feb 8, all people who have visited the mainland in the previous two weeks have had to be quarantined 14 days once enter- ing Hong Kong. Lam also inspected goods clear- ance at the checkpoint. She con- firmed with front-line officers that vehicles that are bringing in goods to Hong Kong are continuously deliver- ing various daily necessities. The chief executive also visited the Infectious Disease Centre of Princess Margaret Hospital. Estab- lished after the SARS outbreak in 2003, it is the city’s first medical center designated for epidemic prevention. Now the hospital has admitted about half of the city’s patients infected by the corona- virus. Lam was briefed about the cen- ter’s endeavor to tackle the infec- tion. She also viewed hospital facil- ities such as the isolation wards that are under renovation. Lam expressed gratitude to the front-line healthcare workers and said the government is in full sup- port of the anti-epidemic work in hospitals. “I have no doubt, with the con- certed efforts of the government and the people, Hong Kong will definitely win the battle against the disease,” she said. Earlier, Lam visited Lei Yue Mun Park and Holiday Village — one of the city’s four quarantine centers — to view the works progress on the construction of temporary units for quarantine purpose. She also vis- ited the temporary communication center at the Customs headquar- ters in North Point that is imple- menting real-time location sharing for people under quarantine. By Sunday, the novel coronavirus has infected more than 60,000 peo- ple across the nation. Of the city’s 57 infection case, one patient has died and two have been released from hospitals. By CHEN ZIMO in Hong Kong [email protected] A device developed by a team of researchers at the Hong Kong Uni- versity of Science and Technology is capable of identifying the novel coronavirus within 40 minutes. The team has donated its invention to Hubei province, the epicenter of the epidemic, and Guangdong province, another hard-hit area. The problem is the device is still awaiting the official stamp of approval. More than 68,000 people on the Chinese mainland have been diagnosed with the pneumonia- like disease, now officially named COVID-19. And more than 1,660 have been killed by it. The device, called a “microfluidic PCR analyzer”, is significantly faster than the widely used polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tech- nology. The common PCR requires 1.5 to 3 hours of testing time, said the team’s leader, Wen Weijia, a profes- sor from HKUST’s Department of Physics. Wen, who is from the mainland city of Chongqing — one of the hard- hit areas — was pleased to see the results of his years of laboratory research could apply to a portable device that could identify more than 70 viruses, including SARS, avian influenza, swine fever, HIV and tuberculosis. He envisions the device will help his nation establish a well- rounded health care mechanism to fend off pandemics like the novel coronavirus outbreak. The speed of raising the temper- ature is the key. The technology to identify the virus is to amplify specific DNA fragments for the extraction of viral RNA. The faster the temperature rises, the more efficiently the DNA amplifies. The more quickly analysis takes place, the more quickly a test result can be produced. The HKUST device adopted micro- fluidic chip technology — which Wen and his research team started study- ing in 2005. They published their first paper in 2009. It is like a novel micro-heater that could elevate tem- peratures up to approximately 30 C per second. The conventional PCR devices, which use semiconductor to heat up testing samples, raise tem- peratures by an average of 4-5 C per second. The major shortcoming is that the device has not yet been approved by China’s National Medical Products Administration, and cannot be offi- cially used in hospitals for clinical diagnoses. The approval process on the main- land has been going on for more than two years since the device was invent- ed in 2017. It took less than a year for the device to obtain international CE certification (EU standard), said Wen. Wen said he regretted the delay. He believes, if the technology were approved for mass production and distribution on the mainland, it could play a greater role in controlling out- breaks — at least in helping to iden- tify infections and isolating patients more efficiently. In 2016, Wen’s PhD students decid- ed to develop products based on the results of laboratory research and set up a biotechnology company in Shenzhen. In December 2017, the research team created such a device to fast-track the testing time for many viruses. In the past two years, it has passed various certifications and may be exported to most countries — but it has not been passed for use on the mainland. Contributing to the fight In late December, COVID-19, the pneumonia-like disease caused by the novel coronavirus, broke out and spread across the country in less than a month. The team started research immediately after obtaining the new coronavirus sequence on Jan 20 and submitted their testing kit within three days. It was not a very challenging task for the research team, said Wen. Even a primary biotechnology company will take no more than a week, he added. But the students, who are “young and smart”, in Wen’s words, were motivated and took the research seri- ously. They were so engrossed in the labs that some slept only four hours a day, he said. The students, some of whom are from the mainland, hoped to come up with the testing kit as soon as pos- sible, as they all felt a responsibility to use their scientific research to sup- port the fight against the disease on the mainland, said Wen. The team soon produced 10,000 testing kits and donated them to Guangdong province. Diagnoses still require detection devices, which are in short supply at present and only available in hospital laboratories. Doctors have to take samples from suspected cases, pack and refrigerate those samples, and take them to the lab for the tests. Wen’s team started out with a much more cumbersome device in 2017. Since then, it has been minia- turized from a larger machine into a portable device, like a small printer, over the past two years. They donated more than 10 devices — all the prototypes they had — to centers for disease control and pre- vention on the mainland in Hubei and Guangdong provinces. Since it has not been certified by Chinese authorities, these centers can use the test results only as a “reference”, said Wen. Governments in Japan and the United Arab Emirates have approached the team showing inter- est in importing the device. Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority is evaluat- ing the research and expects to run tests on the device before introducing it to Hong Kong. Challenges ahead The team faces another problem. Even if other countries and regions choose to purchase the product, the company would be incapable of pro- ducing enough devices to meet the demand. Manufacturers on the main- land have suspended operations due to the outbreak. “The novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic has posed a major challenge to our nation’s medical equipment,” said Wen. Currently, PCR equipment is avail- able only in first-class hospitals on the mainland. Almost all of the machines are imported from abroad and each costs around 500,000 yuan ($71,560). The research and production of medical equipment is a prolonged process, said Wen, and once that’s achieved, it takes another three years to be certified by the proper medical authorities. The problem is that over three years, advanced technology can become outdated, he added. The approval process for medical devices could hamper the use of high technology in China’s public health services and limit the development of high-tech, medical and biologi- cal companies, Wen pointed out. All of this ultimately left the coun- try’s health services less prepared to respond to an outbreak. As a physical scientist, Wen aims to develop new technologies that can detect viruses faster. At the same time, he hopes the technology will apply to devices that are cheaper and small enough to equip rural hospitals and community clinics. At the very least, it can make peo- ple less anxious and afraid when they have the ability to confirm whether there is an actual infection, Wen observed. HK reports one new case of coronavirus, one man discharged The novel corona- virus pneumonia epidemic has posed a major challenge to our nation’s medical equipment.’’ Wen Weijia, professor from Department of Physics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Scan to see more By LI BINGCUN in Hong Kong [email protected] Hong Kong confirmed a new case of novel coronavirus infec- tion on Sunday, raising the tally to 57, the government said at its daily briefing on the epidemic. The latest patient is a 54-year- old man living in the middle-class housing estate of Taikoo Shing. He had not left Hong Kong recently. His wife also showed mild symptoms and was placed under medical observation. The patient visited a local church before and after the onset. The authority is tracking his close contacts. Meanwhile, the patient who was the 27th recorded case of the virus infection in the spe- cial administrative region was released from a hospital on Sun- day. He is the second patient in Hong Kong to have recovered from the disease, and the first confirmed case among the 11 infected people in a group that shared a hotpot dinner on Jan 26. Before being discharged, the patient tested negative twice in tests 24 hours apart. Also on Sunday, another 70 pas- sengers on board the quarantined cruise ship Diamond Princess, now docked in Yokohama, Japan, were confirmed to have been infected by the coronavirus. In total, 355 people on board have contracted the virus. It’s still unknown whether any Hong Kong residents were among the new batch of infections. Earli- er, the SAR government revealed that at least 11 out of the more than 300 Hong Kong passengers on board the vessel were con- firmed to have been infected. The Hong Kong government is arranging chartered flight to bring local residents on board back to the city free of charge, according to a statement on Sat- urday night. The plan is pending the approval of the Japanese gov- ernment. The passengers will be quar- antined for 14 days upon their arrival in Hong Kong. During the past weekend, some radicals vandalized public facili- ties to protest the government’s plan to use some local clinics for epidemic-control use. Earlier, the government had selected 18 general outpatient clinics in the city’s overall 18 dis- tricts to admit suspected patients of coronavirus infection. It didn’t offer a timetable for launching the plan. In a bid to derail the plan, some radical protesters damaged facili- ties of a selected clinic in Tai Po on Saturday. Another group of protesters threw debris onto the light-rail tracks at the Tin Shui Wai station and set fire to station facilities at the same day. On Saturday night, the Hospi- tal Authority strongly condemned the vandalism against clinics. Meanwhile, two more infect- ed patients in Macao were dis- charged on Sunday, bringing the total number of released patients in the gambling hub to five. Macao has recorded no con- firmed case for 12 consecutive days on Sunday, maintaining the infection tally of 10. The Macao government announced on Saturday that it will gradually resume basic ser- vices starting next week. The suspension of casinos, which is slated to end on Wednesday, will be subject to further review until then. Faster detection technique needs faster ‘approval’ Wen Weijia, leader of the researcher team that developed the device capable of identifying the novel coronavirus, poses for a photo with a prototype of the device at his lab at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. MIRIAM ZHANG / CHINA DAILY Lam visited key sites to prevent and control the novel coronavirus I have no doubt, with the concerted efforts of the government and the people, Hong Kong will definitely win the battle against the disease.’’ Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, chief executive HONG KONG EDITION | CHINA DAILY 4 | Monday, February 17, 2020
