Dr Wu Lien-Teh is Li Jing Yeang's third great-uncle.

 

I learnt about my relation with Dr Wu whilst I was in Medical school. My maternal great-great grandmother was his sister and it was surreal to discover that we had such an established figure in the family. Dr Wu was an intelligent man with an impressive academic background and it was quite a feat he faced when he was recruited to help stop the plague in Manchuria. I was inspired by his passion for science and medicine and the bravery he showed in the midst of challenges he faced while trying to end the plague. His persistence and determination are values I uphold since Medical school till today in my daily work as an intern.

It is inspiring that the practices he put in place to contain the plague eg, mask wearing and social distancing continue to be used today. We use the same methodologies Dr Wu used a century ago because they are simple, effective and evidence-based. Additionally, we have the capability to develop vaccines to prevent infections and genetic sequencing is widely available to help us understand viruses more than ever before.

Like the rest of the world, my colleagues and I fear this virus at our workplace as we too face the lack of protective personal equipment. We are thankful that we have senior personnel who are able to use their experience from previous SARS and MERS-Cov outbreaks to guide us at our workplace. We continue to treat patients as we always have, except now, we don masks and practice hand hygiene more frequently. Those at the frontlines have gone above and beyond, to deal with this outbreak.

As they say, prevention is better than cure. We should take the opportunity to develop standard operating procedures for future outbreaks so that countries know how to react to future threats, for early containment in order to reduce spread of diseases. As always, in order to address the problem, we must treat its root cause, which requires the change of attitude in mankind. We need everyone to believe and understand the evidence brought forth by scientists, in order for them to understand the policies we have in place.

 

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