13 picked to translate COVID-19 book into English

Thirteen volunteers have been selected out of 209 candidates from China and the rest of the world to complete translation of a book introducing treatment solutions for COVID-19 patients and sharing Chinese front-line medical workers’ comprehensive knowledge of the pandemic.

Each volunteer will be responsible for translating two chapters involving around 15,000 Chinese characters into English within a week as the book — COVID-19, From Basics To Clinical Practice — is scheduled to be published in May, said Zhang Yongbin, deputy editorin-chief of Fudan University Press, during an exclusive interview with China Daily on Tuesday.

The book, compiled by a team led by Zhang Wenhong — leader of the Shanghai team of experts in the treatment of COVID-19 cases and director of the department of infectious diseases at Shanghai Huashan Hospital — was published in late March in Chinese. The press said the authors decided to grant free copyright to publishers overseas to support countries affected by the pandemic.

“In addition to English, we’ve decided to translate the book into French, German, Spanish, Italian and Persian, and will race against time to choose and organize volunteers for those translations,” Zhang Yongbin said.

On March 27, the press sought translation volunteers. More than 600 emails, resumes and trial translations flooded the press within five days.

“Altogether, we received emails from self-recommenders specializing in 18 foreign languages. They come from all over the country as well as from some foreign countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia and Egypt,” Zhang said.

Around 30 percent of the applicants are university students. One in 10 are either doctors, medical students or those with medical work experience, and other applicants include professional interpreters and language teachers, according to the press.

Jia Huei Chen-Xu, a 24-year-old medical student from Spain, volunteered to help translate the book into Spanish.

She said she was impressed by a chapter in the book that detailed which receptors in the body react to the novel coronavirus, believing it will render new insights for researchers around the world.

“The book also detailed personal protective equipment for doctors and nurses, an imperative issue in many Western countries,” Chen-Xu said. “For example, around one in seven of the 140,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Spain are medical workers.”

Fudan University Press said that it is talking with six publishers, including Germany-based Springer, Indiabased Royal Collins and UK-based Taylor & Francis about publishing the English version.

“In choosing a collaborator, we will consider their level of interest and how fast they could cooperate with publishing the books. It usually takes at least two months to introduce an imported book, but we want to cut that in half,” Zhang said.

The book covers epidemiological characteristics and the latest research as well as clinical experience, diagnosis and treatment at home and abroad. It also included the Shanghai expert team’s experience in treating COVID-19 cases.