Prof. HUI Shu-Cheong David
Director, Stanley Ho Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases, Jockey Club School of Public Health & Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), Hong Kong SAR, China
Chairman, Department of Medicine & Therapeutics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), Hong Kong SAR, China

Prof. Hui is the Chairman & Stanley Ho Professor of Respiratory Medicine under the Department of Medicine & Therapeutics, in addition to his role as the Director of the Stanley Ho Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).

He has joined the CUHK as an academic clinician since 1998 and is based at the Prince of Wales Hospital, HK where a major outbreak of SARS occurred in 2003. Since 2004, he has frequently served as an advisor to the WHO on the clinical management of emerging severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) including avian influenza, pandemic influenza, MERS and COVID-19. He joined urgent WHO missions for the investigation of MERS outbreaks in Riyadh and South Korea in 2013 and 2015 respectively.

He has served as an expert advisor to the Chief Executive, HKSAR government on COVID-19 since Jan 2020 and the Chairman of the Scientific Committee on Emerging & Zoonotic Diseases under the Center for Health Protection since Sept 2019.

Abstract

An Overview of COVID-19

SARS-CoV2 first emerged in Dec 2019 in Wuhan and rapidly developed into a COVID-19 pandemic since March 2020.

The clinical spectrum of COVID-19 ranges from asymptomatic infection, mild, moderate, severe to critical illness.

SARS-CoV2 is highly infectious with high viral loads peaking during day 2-4 of illness and the viral kinetics facilitate community transmission.

Patients in the asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic stage can transmit infection to others.

Common routes of transmission include respiratory droplets, contact with fomites, and short-range airborne transmission is possible in environment with poor ventilation.

Low dose corticosteroid is the only treatment modality proven to reduce mortality while antiviral agent remdesivir can shorten duration of illness by 5 days in patients who have respiratory failure.

Vaccination is an important modality to control COVID-19 by reducing risk of symptomatic transmission.
Emergence of mutant viruses in recent months are of great concern as these would increase transmissibility of SARS-CoV2 and reduce effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.

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