Fighting against the common enemy of COVID-19: a practice of building a community with a shared future for mankind

• Main Authors: Xu Qian (Author), Ran Ren (Author), Youfa Wang (Author), Yan Guo (Author), Jing Fang (Author), Zhong-Dao Wu (Author), Pei-Long Liu (Author), Tie-Ru Han (Author), Members of Steering Committee, Society of Global Health, Chinese Preventive Medicine Association (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: BMC, 2020-04-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.
• Notes: 10.1186/s40249-020-00650-1; 2049-9957
• Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; Outbreak; Pandemic; Fighting; Preparedness; Infectious and parasitic diseases; RC109-216; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270
• Source: Infectious Diseases of Poverty, Vol 9, Iss 1, Pp 1-6 (2020)

Abstract The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused more than 80 813 confirmed cases in all provinces of China, and 21 110 cases reported in 93 countries of six continents as of 7 March 2020 since middle December 2019. Due to biological nature of the novel coronavirus, named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) with faster spreading and unknown transmission pattern, it makes us in a difficulty position to contain the disease transmission globally. To date, we have found it is one of the greatest challenges to human beings in fighting against COVID-19 in the history, because SARS-CoV-2 is different from SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV in terms of biological features and transmissibility, and also found the containment strategies including the non-pharmaceutical public health measures implemented in China are effective and successful. In order to prevent a potential pandemic-level outbreak of COVID-19, we, as a community of shared future for mankind, recommend for all international leaders to support preparedness in low and middle income countries especially, take strong global interventions by using old approaches or new tools, mobilize global resources to equip hospital facilities and supplies to protect noisome infections and to provide personal protective tools such as facemask to general population, and quickly initiate research projects on drug and vaccine development. We also recommend for the international community to develop better coordination, cooperation, and strong solidarity in the joint efforts of fighting against COVID-19 spreading recommended by the joint mission report of the WHO-China experts, against violating the International Health Regulation (WHO, 2005), and against stigmatization, in order to eventually win the battle against our common enemy - COVID-19.