Lecture Series for Preventing and Controlling COVID-19

In December 2019, a cluster of patients with pneumonia of unknown cause appeared in Wuhan, Hubei. Governments at all levels and Department of Health Administration highly valued and rapidly organized the centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), medical institutions, and scientific research academies to conduct a survey, rescue, and collaborative research. This new antigen was quickly identified as a novel coronavirus, named as 2019-nCoV by World Health Organization (WHO). Meanwhile, the pneumonia caused by it was named as novel coronavirus pneumonia. Implementing the decisions by the CPC Central Committee and State Council with Xi at the core, the whole country took comprehensive actions in social mobilization and deployment, taking epidemic control a most important work in the immediate future. The spread of the epidemic has been effectively controlled. However, novel coronavirus has spread to the whole world thereafter, so it called for closer international cooperation in epidemic prevention and control. Based on this situation, it was urgent to set a new MOOC program about COVID-19 and impart scientific knowledge of the disease to foreign students, undergraduate students, and all the other common people abroad, laying a solid foundation for the triumph of the war against COVID-19.

The novel coronavirus is a new strain of coronavirus that had never been found in humans before. This huge family already known can cause cold or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and other severe diseases. The main signs and symptoms of the infected people include respiratory symptoms, fever, dry cough, shortness of breath, and dyspnea, etc. In severe and critical cases, there will appear pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure, and even death. The two-month war against COVID-19 has helped us accumulate loads of experience in disease prevention, control, diagnosis, and treatment, which can be shared with the whole world as a reference.

In front of the need of our students and common people on COVID-19 prevention knowledge, the Health Science Center of Xi’an Jiaotong University has organized related experts to issue the English lectures of the epidemic prevention and control for people at home and abroad and international community. The contents are mainly about “Introduction,Diagnose,therapeutic Strategy and Prevention for COVID-19”. Through this course, we sincerely hope all our students and the common peoples of the world have scientific knowledge of COVID-19 and increased self-protection awareness, improving international community’s capacity for the prevention and control of COVID-19. We should work in great unity, take science-based and targeted measures against the epidemic, and have confidence in conquering the virus.