Yuen Kwok-yung: The next infectious disease pandemic will break out in a few years | Exclusive

In more than three years of fighting against the epidemic, Hong Kong citizens have long been familiar with the name of Yuen Kwok-yung, the Docent of the Department of Microbiology of HKU. Recently, he teamed up with David Ho, a Chinese American scientist, to establish the "Alliance for Epidemic Research"

In more than three years of fighting against the epidemic, Hong Kong citizens have long been familiar with the name of Yuen Kwok-yung, the Docent of the Department of Microbiology of HKU. Recently, he teamed up with David Ho, a Chinese American scientist, to establish the "Alliance for Epidemic Research". He stated that the Hong Kong University team will leverage their research experience in emerging infectious diseases, conduct virus monitoring, and prepare for the next pandemic outbreak.

Hong Kong team studies virus infection ability with respiratory Organoid

Although Hong Kong has fully recovered, Yuen Kwok-yung, Docent of the University of Hong Kong, is working with scientists from many countries to prepare for the next pandemic. In an exclusive interview with Phoenix Satellite TV, he said that in the past 20 years of research work, the HKU team has found more than 80 new viruses in human and animal tissues, and pioneered the Organoid of human respiratory tract to study the infection of new viruses on human beings.The team will continue to monitor the virus and respond quickly when encountering new infectious diseases.

Yuen Kwok-yung, Docent, Department of Microbiology, University of Hong Kong:
For example, animals (viruses) may be in the intestines. We can "seed" the virus with the intestinal Organoid of animals, and then try to see whether it can jump into the Organoid of the human airway, and then see whether it can infect the human airway. Three or four of these 80 kinds of viruses may easily jump into human Organoid, so we began to study.

If there is another outbreak, Yuen Kwok-yung hopes to launch the vaccine within half a year

Yuen Kwok-yung said that the team will make rapid tests for the pathological mechanism of different viruses, monitor the changes in the number of viruses, and develop drugs at the same time,He believes that this approach will greatly shorten the development time of vaccines and drugs.

Yuen Kwok-yung, Docent, Department of Microbiology, University of Hong Kong:
We need a "seed" to make vaccines. Our "seed" is already here, and then it is sent to the factory, which will immediately produce it. If you already know which drug should be effective, you may have already completed the first and second phase of clinical testing. When there is a real pandemic, the third phase of testing can be conducted, which will be much faster than now. Perhaps the vaccine has been produced for half a year, and antiviral drugs have been available for 9 months. We hope to achieve this.

Yuen Kwok-yung predicted that the next pandemic of infectious diseases would break out in a few years

In 1894, the pestis caused serious losses in Hong Kong, and later suffered from avian influenza, SARS, swine flu and other infectious diseases.Yuen Kwok-yung believed that reviewing the history of global infectious diseases, with the increase of global population mobility, the outbreak of pandemics will become more and more frequent.

Yuen Kwok-yung, Docent, Department of Microbiology, University of Hong Kong:

Every outbreak (of a pandemic) starts several decades ago and only occurs once in a few years now, so I believe that in my lifetime, I will definitely see another outbreak (of a pandemic), perhaps even before I retire.

Yuen Kwok-yung summarized the new infectious diseases in the past. He said that about 75% of the viruses came from wild animals, and the virus may jump to the Intermediate host, and then jump to humans.He once again emphasized the importance of animal monitoring and believed that it was necessary to prohibit the sale of live animals in wet markets.

Source: Reported by Cui Kejun from Phoenix TV in Hong Kong

Editor: Qiu Guo

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