Well this constitutes our last night in China. It's a bit sad to think about leaving all the great friends behind that we've made, but home is never too far away. This week has been a great opportunity to validate our education at SPH and gave us the chance to further our knowledge in an area many clinically-trained physicans don't even get to learn.
While here, we've been able to take an active role in measles outbreak and surveillance. Our group traveled into district hospitals to learn the methods of disease control and how patients were treated. Over the next couple of days, we spent time in Tianjin districts conducting follow-up surveys within the homes of local residents. Some of the kids we met were absolutely hilarious. In one home, we met a three year old boy who put on a sweet kung-fu performance that absolutely compared to some of the best Asian kung-fu movies ever. Using the data we collected from our group foll0w-up, we were able to start seeing patterns and trends that related measles outbreaks to activity within communities and even more interesting, within the hospitals.
Upon assesing what little data we did have, we realized that many children were coming down with measles in the hospital for completely different reasons. Back home we're used to MRSA, VRE, and C-diff dominiating the scene and don't think of viruses being a major source of nosocomial infections. However, in China many children come for a plethora of small things and end up going home with a case of measles. This creates a huge problem in the public health system for China as the population numbers are very high and there is a shortage of vaccine to carry out a thourough vaccination program. While in the US, we see at most 7-10 cases per year, there was 27 cases in one province of China before lunch-time. That truly is astounding when you think about the fact that most US physicians will never even see a single case in their careers. We found that children were often not vaccinated properly even given immunization records. When you think about the sheer number of children to try and vaccinate, it's an astronomical task for the CDC to undertake, especially with a large float population.
It was interesting to dig deeper into the infrastructure of health-care from top to bottom in investigating and treating measles cases. It began with a village doctor who provided vaccinations and initial care to members of the community, but quickly traversed up the chain via real-time on-line surveillance reporting to alert the local, district, and national CDCs. Each link in the healthcare chain was integral in assuring that measles prevention could take place.
Between the food, the sightseeing, and soaking up as much new information as we could handle, the week flew by quicker than we ever expected. We leave China tomorrow with a new appreciation for the public health system here, the surveillance methods, and all the new friends we've made at the Tianjin CDC. We are sad to leave, but are thankful for the chance we've had and the memories of a lifetime!!!
While here, we've been able to take an active role in measles outbreak and surveillance. Our group traveled into district hospitals to learn the methods of disease control and how patients were treated. Over the next couple of days, we spent time in Tianjin districts conducting follow-up surveys within the homes of local residents. Some of the kids we met were absolutely hilarious. In one home, we met a three year old boy who put on a sweet kung-fu performance that absolutely compared to some of the best Asian kung-fu movies ever. Using the data we collected from our group foll0w-up, we were able to start seeing patterns and trends that related measles outbreaks to activity within communities and even more interesting, within the hospitals.
Upon assesing what little data we did have, we realized that many children were coming down with measles in the hospital for completely different reasons. Back home we're used to MRSA, VRE, and C-diff dominiating the scene and don't think of viruses being a major source of nosocomial infections. However, in China many children come for a plethora of small things and end up going home with a case of measles. This creates a huge problem in the public health system for China as the population numbers are very high and there is a shortage of vaccine to carry out a thourough vaccination program. While in the US, we see at most 7-10 cases per year, there was 27 cases in one province of China before lunch-time. That truly is astounding when you think about the fact that most US physicians will never even see a single case in their careers. We found that children were often not vaccinated properly even given immunization records. When you think about the sheer number of children to try and vaccinate, it's an astronomical task for the CDC to undertake, especially with a large float population.
It was interesting to dig deeper into the infrastructure of health-care from top to bottom in investigating and treating measles cases. It began with a village doctor who provided vaccinations and initial care to members of the community, but quickly traversed up the chain via real-time on-line surveillance reporting to alert the local, district, and national CDCs. Each link in the healthcare chain was integral in assuring that measles prevention could take place.
Between the food, the sightseeing, and soaking up as much new information as we could handle, the week flew by quicker than we ever expected. We leave China tomorrow with a new appreciation for the public health system here, the surveillance methods, and all the new friends we've made at the Tianjin CDC. We are sad to leave, but are thankful for the chance we've had and the memories of a lifetime!!!
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