The brains behind a megacity's disease control and prevention

With the COVID-19 outbreak coming under control in China, Sun Xiaodong, deputy director of the Shanghai center for disease control and prevention, has been reminding the public to catch up on their missed vaccine shots since early April.

"We have all learned about how contagious this virus is over the past few months, but do you know that a person with measles or pertussis can infect far more people than COVID-19?" says the 52-year-old.

Having worked at the SCDC for decades, Sun has experienced a series of public healthcare crises including the SARS outbreak in 2003, the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and the H1N1 flu epidemic. This time around, he has been one of the key players in Shanghai's efforts to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, working as the leader of a team tasked with creating safety protocols. To date, the team has produced five editions of these protocols.

Sun and his team were the first to introduce the guidelines aimed at preventing infection in hospitals. They have also designed measures to safeguard the vulnerable population as well as manuals for the sterilization of areas such as residential communities.

Sun was also responsible for setting up a team of 550 people to conduct epidemiological investigation. He also founded a special task force to perform contract tracing. This unit successfully identified more than 120 cases of confirmed infections.

"At first, we worked under great pressure because there is no medicine or vaccine, and we didn't know whether the measures would be effective," Sun says. "When the epidemic was better contained in Shanghai, the public might have felt more at ease, but we were still under stress, having to adjust measures for inbound travelers frequently."