The outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia has brought huge threat to human health, people all over the world pay close attention to its prevention, control,  transmission, and treatment. The novel coronavirus pneumonia was first reported in late December. It is believed to have spread to humans from wild animals sold at a market in Wuhan. Since then, it has spread across China and to more than 20 countries and territories around the world. Since the outbreak, a series of preventive and control measures are taken to curb the spread of novel coronavirus and have made great progress: new recovery cases of novel coronavirus reported on Tuesday(Feb.19) outnumber new confirmed cases for the first time in China; numbers of novel coronavirus infections reported on daily basis outside epicenter Hubei Province declined for the 16th consecutive day as reported on Feb 19;  no comfirmed cases of novle coronaviruswerereported in multiple provinces and autonomous regins in China on Feb 19; Guangzhou reported no new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infections for the 72 hours ending Feb.19!

The epidemic prevention and control is in a critical time. St. Stamford Modern Cancer Hospital has made every effort to cooperate with national and local governments to control the outbreak of novel coronavirus. Several effective preventive measures are taken to safeguard the health of every patient and staff. So far, there are no cases of novel coronavirus infection at St. Stamford Modern Cancer Hospital. Viral containment measures we conducted are as follows:

1.Strict prevention and control management. A Prevention and Control Team was founded on Jan. 20 to strengthen the prevention and control of novel coronavirus. The group was made of doctors, nurses, and staffs from Infection-Control Department, Logistics Department, Safeguard Department and etc. Besides, an emergency plan was tailored and launched immediately to optimize the process of clinical reception. 

2. Through and full disinfection all over the hospital. The Infection-Control Department takes a strict management of the hospital disinfection and garbage collection. Every ward is sterilized, and public areas like elevators, canteen are disinfected at least 4 times every day.

3. Outpatient service temporary stop. Since the immunity of cancer patient is relatively weak, we temporary stop our outpatient service for better prevention and protection. Nucleic acid detection is the most accurate method to screen the novel coronavirus, thus every newly inpatient is required to under the detection.  

4. Strict health management. Staffs back from HuBei Province, HeNan Province and other several provinces are required a 14-day observation before working. A pre-examination triage counter is set at the entrance of the hospital, whoever enters the hospital must get their body temperature checked.

5. Free preventive herbal medicine soup. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been widely used in the fight against novel coronavirus pneumonia because it can prevent the virus from entering human cells and achieve apparent effects at the early stage of the disease. St. Stamford Modern Cancer offers free herbal medicine soup to every staff and inpatient, so as to enhance their immunity to better prevent novel coronavirus.

6. Remote consultation to ensure timely treatment. Remote consultation is that the Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) provides further diagnosis of the patient’s disease and makes treatment recommendations based on their condition with modern means of communication, it breaks through the geographical and language limitation and maximizes global medical resource sharing. To minimize turnover, patients can contact our staff in the office for remote consultation if needed. The attending doctor will give professional medical advice after a comprehensive evaluation of the patient’s condition. If the patient is in a critical condition, timely treatment in a local hospital is a better choice; if patient is in a stable condition, follow-up visit will be postponed.

7. Information and tips for inpatients to prevent the novel coronavirus. To increase patients and their families’ awareness of preventing novel coronavirus, St. Stamford Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou specially released a Notification for Inpatients and Their Families

8. Reasonably plan the admission time. Before coming for treatment, patient has to make an appointment first. The admission time will be well scheduled as so to avoid contact with other non-medical personnel.

During this critical period of epidemic prevention, St. Stamford Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou always will strive for a healthy and safe hospital environment, and we really appreciate the cooperation of patients and family members. Let’s join hands to achieve zero infection of our patients and employees.

*Surgery, in addition to the appropriate chemotherapy and radiotherapy, are effective in treating early cancer, but certain patients in late stage of cancer may not be tolerate surgery well as they can be relatively weak. A combination of carefully planned minimally invasive therapy, chemotherapy or radiotherapy can effectively reduce the side effects and discomfort of treatment and may help patient get better efficacy.