Faculty and staff from UNMC traveled halfway around the world recently to exchange experiences and knowledge on Ebola and other infectious diseases.
The one-week trip to Shanghai, Xi’an and Beijing, China, included experts in medicine, research, clinical laboratory science, transportation and decontamination, as well as representatives from Nebraska’s Department of Health and Human Services and Emory University.
Ken Bayles, Ph.D., UNMC associate vice chancellor for basic science research, said the idea was to make connections and share experiences in the treatment of highly infectious diseases that require specialized containment facilities.
“There was a lot of interest in what we are doing. It was fascinating. For the most part, their facilities were pretty impressive,” Dr. Bayles said. “They had a modern biocontainment unit and a decontamination facility that you could drive an ambulance into and decontaminate the whole ambulance. We could use something like that.”
The group visited various hospitals and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, as well as the Chinese equivalent of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In Xi’an, they visited 8th Hospital which was the frontline for the 2003-2004 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in China.
Chris Kratochvil, M.D., UNMC associate vice chancellor for clinical research and vice president for research for Nebraska Medicine, said the trip was an excellent opportunity for UNMC faculty and its U.S. colleagues to exchange information with Chinese colleagues. “This was highlighted during a daylong joint symposium at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, organized by Dr. Bayles, where U.S. and Chinese experts shared scientific and operational information about the management of highly infectious diseases.”
Angela Hewlett M.D., associate professor, UNMC Division of Infectious Diseases and associate medical director of the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit at Nebraska Medicine, said the trip was an amazing experience.
“We learned about the Chinese medical system through visiting hospitals and meeting with experts who treated patients with diseases like SARS and H7N9 influenza, which was exciting for me as a specialist in infectious diseases,” Dr. Hewlett said. “We also shared our experiences and lessons we learned through treating our patients with Ebola virus disease in the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit. I feel fortunate to have been included.”
Also included on the trip were UNMC faculty and staff Jialin Zheng, M.D., John Lowe, Ph.D., Ming Qu, Ph.D., (also of Division of Public Health, Nebraska HHS) and Zenghan “Hannah” Tong.