2 kids among 34 patients released
Wu Ruofan and Yang Meiping
A TOTAL of 34 local coronavirus patients, including two children, were discharged upon recovery yesterday, the Shanghai Health Commission said.
So far, 124 people in the city have been released from hospital. Eight people who were discharged yesterday expressed their willingness to donate blood which carries antibodies to the virus for patient treatment.
According to the commission, doctors have widely adopted the use of traditional Chinese medicine. About 92 percent of patients have been treated with TCM and over 63 percent have imbibed herbal soup.
Two girls were discharged from Fudan University Children’s Hospital after recovering.
One, aged 10, came to Shanghai from Wuhan to visit relatives at the end of January and was confirmed with the coronavirus after going to hospital for fever and a sore throat.
The other 14-month-old baby from Shanghai caught the virus after visiting her grandmother in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, with her family last month. Her father showed symptoms first, with her mother and grandmother also confirmed infected. All of them were sent to designated hospitals for quarantine treatment.
After being treated with attentive care and child-friendly medicines, both children recovered quickly and reached the standard for discharge, with two nucleic acid tests negative.
“All of the infected children are given motherly care as we view them as our own babies,” said Xu Hong, a official from the hospital.
As of Friday, the children’s hospital has received 10 infected children, aged between 7 months and 11 years old, half boys and half girls. Most of them show only mild symptoms of infection, six have pneumonia.
No new infections were reported in Shanghai as of noon yesterday. Another 36 suspected cases were ruled out, the commission revealed. So far, Shanghai has reported 326 cases, with the patients aged between 7 months and 88 years, and cleared 1,622 suspected cases.
The commission said 184 of the patients are stable, four are in serious condition and 13 are critical. There has been one fatality. Another 145 suspected cases are undergoing tests.
Commission spokeswoman Zheng Jin revealed that among the eight patients diagnosed on Friday were seven from Wuhan, and are family members of a patient diagnosed on Thursday.
The family arrived in Shanghai on January 23. They first stayed at a hotel before they were put into quarantine. They showed no symptoms until February 12. The remaining family member is still in quarantine.