In 1988, Chen Xia was leading a delegation from Yuezhou Hospital to poach talents from all over the country.
Fishermen in Dongqi County, Jiangsu Province, are also busy salvaging their catches.
Dongqi County is located in the southeast corner of Jiangsu Province. It is separated from Mingzhu City by the Yangtze River Estuary, and outside is the vast East China Sea.
The economy of Dongqi County was not very developed in the 1980s. The county was mainly based on agriculture and fishery production, and most of the catch was sold to Mingzhu City.
This year, perhaps God opened his eyes, and a large number of hairy clams appeared at the intersection of the Yangtze River Estuary and the East China Sea.
This is a small shell that is delicious whether it is put into soup or steamed egg.
The citizens of Mingzhu City particularly like small seafood such as hairy clams. They blanch them in boiling water before eating, then pour soy sauce on them and sprinkle with chopped green onions to make a home-cooked dish.
The price is not expensive, the retail price on the market is about 60 cents per pound.
Because Dongqi County had a bumper harvest of hairy clams this year, a large number of wholesalers gathered at the dock, and then boatloads of hairy clams were delivered by fishermen, who exchanged money for goods.
Then, truckloads of hairy clams were transported into "Pearl City", sent to various vegetable markets, and then to the dining tables of every household.
No one knew that with the influx of razor clams, a huge disaster began to loom over the largest city in the Far East.
Dr. Yang Liankui of Huangpu Infectious Disease Hospital in Mingzhu City and Dr. Liu Xiaoqing of Huangpu Central Hospital were classmates.
When the two were chatting together, they talked about a strange phenomenon. Recently, when they were sitting in the outpatient clinic, they found that the incidence of hepatitis A was rising sharply.
In the past, a few dozen cases a month was considered a lot.
Now each doctor can see more than 20 cases every day.
Considering that hepatitis A is an infectious disease, the large influx of patients into the outpatient clinic in such a short period of time is definitely an abnormal phenomenon.
The key point is that there is another abnormal point. Patients generally reported that they had eaten hairy clams before they became ill.
There was a 2-year-old child who was diagnosed with hepatitis A at the same time as his mother. When the doctor asked about the medical history, the mother said that she had fed the child some hairy clams but did not eat them.
The two doctors immediately realized that this must be an epidemic of hepatitis A caused by eating unclean hairy clams.
So the next day, both of them reported the incident to the hospital.
But at the beginning, no one paid attention to it. Hairy clams are prone to hepatitis A, which was rare in the past.
The health department issued an urgent notice in the newspaper, asking everyone not to eat hairy clams in the near future. Even the hairy clams in the vegetable market were forcibly dumped into the trash can for destruction by the relevant departments.
But the citizens don’t believe it and think it’s an exaggeration. Why not eat such economical and delicious shells?
Some people even go out of their way to find the discarded hairy clams and take them home to eat, feeling smug and thinking they've gotten a great deal.
As a result, the number of hepatitis A patients in Mingzhu City suddenly broke out.
The outbreak has left the entire city in a state of shock, as the number of new cases increases by tens of thousands every day, not just a few or dozens of cases.
This is no longer just a "popular" thing.
This is the first time in more than a hundred years since Mingzhu City was founded that it has encountered such a concentrated and large-scale infectious disease outbreak. We are not well prepared.
It's not just a shortage of medicines, the key is also a shortage of hospital beds.
Mingzhu City Infectious Disease Hospital has only 280 beds, and all the beds in all hospitals in the city combined are no more than 50,000.
At this time, the number of hepatitis A patients in the city had rapidly increased from 100,000 to 200,000, and the number was increasing at a rate of 10,000 to 20,000 every day.
The worst thing is that in the 1980s, most citizens in Mingzhu City lived in stone alleys, and used toilets for urination and defecation. When they washed up in the morning, the sewage was directly discharged into the nearby river.
Hepatitis A is a disease transmitted through the fecal-oral route, and the dirty and messy environment exacerbates the spread of the epidemic.
All the hospitals in Mingzhu City can only be described as collapsed and are struggling to hold on.
As a last resort, Mingzhu City urgently requested support from surrounding cities.
Medicine, a lot of medicine is needed.
Doctors, please send as many infectious disease doctors as you can.
It would be best to set up a field hospital, bring a full set of medicines and doctors, and relieve the pressure on Mingzhu City.
Even Changhai Hospital has vacated a number of beds to accommodate hepatitis A patients. Originally, Professor Wu Mengchao's patients were mainly in the hepatobiliary surgery department, but now he has been forced to switch to the hepatology department.
Fortunately, Professor Wu is an authority in hepatology, and is proficient in both internal medicine and surgery. If it were a rough surgeon from later generations, he would not know how to treat hepatitis.
Chen Qiu now follows Professor Wu on ward rounds every day and is so tired that he has dark circles under his eyes, not to mention the old man.
"Xiao Qiu, how is our medicine supply? How long can it last?"
"Teacher Wu, I went to the pharmacy this morning and asked. They still have some infusion bottles, but the liver protection drugs are almost gone. Director Dong said that when the drugs are gone, we will stop accepting new patients."
Wu Mengchao shook his head after hearing this:
"No, how can we stop? If these hepatitis A patients don't receive timely treatment, the electrolyte imbalance will be unresolved and could lead to death. How can we just stand by and watch?"
Chen Qiu was also very embarrassed, and suddenly thought of something.
"Professor, does my brother have any solution? Maybe our Pumpkin Vine Pharmaceutical Factory can help?"
Professor Wu pondered for a long time, puzzled. "I don't remember Pumpkin Vine Pharmaceuticals producing liver-protecting drugs."
Chen Qiu chuckled. "Teacher, you don't understand the strength of the pumpkin vines. Generally, if you need any medicine from outside, they have the technical reserves. It won't be difficult for them."
Professor Wu was anxious at this time:
"What else is there to say? Let's quickly get Yuezhou Hospital and Nanguateng Pharmaceutical to provide emergency support. After all, our Changhai Hospital and Yuezhou Hospital are partner hospitals. Let them come to support us, and quickly."
The other doctors who were on rounds nearby felt their teeth ache after hearing this.
"What the hell is this? Changhai Hospital has always supported the hospitals below it, and now they're asking Yuezhou Hospital to support our Changhai? Are they too strong? Or is our Changhai useless?"
However, the epidemic is an order, and this is not the time to be prejudiced.
When the support request from Changhai Hospital was sent to Yuezhou Hospital, Zhao Xiaoying, Chen Xia and his team were still wielding hoes to dig out people at Xiangya Hospital in Changsha.
The staff from the hospital office ran in:
"Director Zhao, Vice President Chen, hurry up! Changhai Hospital has sent a support telegram to our hospital. There's a hepatitis A outbreak in Mingzhu City, and we need urgent support."
It has to be said that the flow of information in this era is too slow. Such a big thing happened in Mingzhu City, but Chen Xia and his friends who were away were completely unaware of it.
Zhao Xiaoying became anxious when she heard this: "The telegram said that there are now over 200,000 confirmed cases of hepatitis A in Mingzhu City."
More than 200,000?
Everyone was shocked when they heard it.
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