Prof Wang Linfa has put Duke-NUS in the media spotlight with his expert views and work on the COVID-19 outbreak, both locally and internationally. The Director of Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) Programme shares more about the research developments.
Prof Wang Linfa is a member of multiple World Health Organization (WHO) committees on COVID-19, including the 16-member WHO International Health Regulations Emergency Committee. He was recently in Wuhan for a collaborative visit with the Wuhan Institute of Virology from 14 to 18 January 2020, a critical time before the whole city was put under quarantine.
As a professional and EID expert, he placed himself on self-quarantine once back in Singapore, even before the Ministry of Health (MOH) had provided guidelines for travellers from Wuhan. While self-quarantined he was very busy providing expert interviews to multiple media outlets, coordinating research efforts at Duke-NUS and participating in WHO meetings (remotely). It was during this time that Duke-NUS became the third country in the world, outside China, to culture the virus. These efforts were led by Assistant Professor Danielle Anderson, Scientific Director of the Duke-NUS ABSL3 facility, in collaboration with clinicians and scientists from SingHealth Duke-NUS AMC, Singapore General Hospital (SGH), National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) and MOH. The team successfully isolated and cultured the virus in four days after receiving the specimen inside the ABSL3 lab. This key development will aid efforts in all aspects of outbreak responses and future translational research.
Ever the prolific researcher, Prof Wang penned a recent commentary during self-quarantine on the worldwide response to zoonotic viruses such as SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and now, COVID-19. This was published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, in collaboration with Asst Prof Anderson and Prof Michael Merson, Director of the SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute, and another expert from Curtin University in Australia. The commentary can be found here along with more about COVID-19 from this 10-minute video: LIT (Learning in 10) review.