Across China: Universities pool wisdom to aid coronavirus fight

Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-17 17:36:29|Editor: huaxia

HARBIN/TIANJIN, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- From real-time tracking maps to rumor debunking assistants and rapid test kits, universities across China are pooling their wisdom to assist in the novel coronavirus fight.

Just click a link and an interactive map will pop up on your phone screen, tracking the novel coronavirus in near real-time based on confirmed case data from government sources.

"The places marked in red were where infected patients had visited. You'd better not go there," said Che Wanxiang, a professor at Harbin Institute of Technology, who displays how to use the tracking map developed by his team in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

The tool developers input information including patients' track in a given time, which is published on the website of the Harbin government, into the program and utilized the application programming interface provided by Amap, a leading Chinese mapping service provider, to visualize the above information.

"We take advantage of our expertise, in hope of reducing the novel coronavirus infection," Che said, adding that the tracking map can help citizens and community workers better understand the outbreak situation as it unfolds, with transparent data sources.

Besides Harbin, similar tracking map tools have been applied in a growing number of provincial-level regions, such as Jiangxi, Guangdong and Hubei provinces.

"Does wearing a sweater make it easier to be infected?" "Can taking a hot bath prevent the infection of the coronavirus?" Besides the virus itself, online rumors concerning the novel coronavirus have also hurt people.

Teachers and students from Tianjin University have developed a mini-program called "rumor debunking assistant," which can provide answers to questions regarding fake news circulating in messaging apps.

The developers said they would update authoritative and reliable information based on big data analysis to debunk rumors and ease public anxiety.

Besides the smart tech devices, Chinese universities have been urged to make greater scientific research efforts to help curb the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Higher education institutions where conditions allow should adjust their portfolio of projects to support epidemic control-related scientific research, speed up efforts to trace the origin of the virus and study its transmission mechanism, said a circular jointly issued by the education and finance ministries.

China's Nankai University has announced a breakthrough in developing a novel coronavirus rapid test kit that can identify infection among suspected patients within 15 minutes.

The new virus detection product, called Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) IgM/IgG antibody detection kit, was developed by the century-old university based in northern China's Tianjin, together with a group of experts from other Chinese universities and biopharmaceutical companies.

The test kit can shorten the testing time, provide easier and faster operation and make a rapid diagnosis of suspected patients and on-site screening of people in close contact, the university said in a statement.

The Nankai test kit is expected to be used in epidemic prevention and control soon, the university said.

KEY WORDS:
EXPLORE XINHUANET
010020070750000000000000011100001387919701