BEIJING, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Epidemiological surveys have played an important role in making China's efforts more effective to prevent and control the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), said an expert on Tuesday.
An epidemiological survey aims to find out how a patient became infected, who infected the patient and whether the patient has passed the virus onto other people, said Wu Zunyou, a researcher with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, at a press conference in Beijing.
A detailed and carefully conducted survey, which requires full communication and considerable trust between the researchers and patients, is essential to the epidemic control, Wu stressed.
When Wu arrived in Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, on Feb. 20, there were over 1,800 teams, each of which has five members, conducting the epidemiological surveys in the city, he added.
"Epidemiological surveys paint a clear picture of the entire chain of transmission and the transmission network, making our control measures more effective," said Wu.
The surveys now in China need to focus on two aspects. One is to keep following the conditions of the discharged and recovered patients in Wuhan, and the other is to look into the imported cases and the people who enter China and were under medical observation for 14 days, Wu added.
