Imagine a scenario like this:
"Plagues are invincible, they sweep the whole world, like dry wood meets fire, as long as there is a place where humans live, they are there. On land, they followed trade routes; at sea, they spread everywhere through ships. Only when the flames go out on their own do they spread slowly. ”
At its worst, nearly 700 million people were infected and 7 million people died each year worldwide.
The "it" has plagued mankind for so long that it can be described as ancient. Historically, it has "killed countless people", and the corpses in the places it has been visited have been scattered all over the field, and the way of illness is extremely painful, some people call it "the disease of hell".
Even, at one point, it changed history.
It seems to be describing the COVID-19 pandemic that is ravaging the world.
Actually, it's not.
The "plague" here is more terrible than the new crown, more lethal, almost "invincible" - malaria.
But, China, it's zeroed out.
Image source: Network
Why suddenly talk about malaria?
Because today, April 25, is World Malaria Day.
To this day, there are still many countries in the world that are deeply affected by "malaria".
However, China has achieved all the local clearance, and the process is bumpy and arduous, and many Chinese people may not understand it.
Image source: Network
Let's take a brief look at why malaria is called the "disease of hell."
It is mainly transmitted by mosquitoes that reproduce extremely quickly. After the malaria parasite enters the human body, it will frantically destroy the body's red blood cells, resulting in the onset of disease.
The malaria parasite is approaching a person's red blood cells Source: Network
The pathogenesis process can be called "extreme torture".
First the chills, from the limbs to the back and then began to tremble all over the body, frequent cold shivers. After a period of time, the chills disappear and the body temperature rises and begins to have a high fever, reaching a maximum of more than 40 degrees. The high fever is followed by sweating, sweating profusely, and only then does the first cycle end, and then repeat the whole process again until death.
The history books once recorded: "From dusk to dawn, there were endless cries, and there were countless ghosts in the miasma."
In Africa, it's even scarier. Due to the hot and humid climate and harsh environment, a child dies of malaria every thirty seconds.
Can you imagine? Countless parents have watched their children die, and their hearts have been eaten...
Moreover, the scope of malaria is spreading around the world.
One of the most important factors in the decline of the Roman Empire, a super-empire that ruled the world for nearly 300 years, was malaria.
This is not a fabrication. There are historical sources, recorded archaeological evidence, and testimony from more than one historian.
Powerful civilizations, such as the ancient Roman Empire at that time, were tortured to the point of helplessness and mourning, and finally helplessly classified it as "heavenly condemnation" and "heavenly curse".
Image source: Network
Malaria was even an important factor in the untimely death of one of the kings of early Britain.
This "nightmare throughout human history" has persisted for thousands of years and is still rampant.
To this day, Angola remains one of the countries with the worst malaria in the world. More than 6 million infections and more than 9,000 deaths are occurred each year.
This is especially true in Africa, the region with a high incidence of plague.
Millions of Africans die each year because they do not have access to treatment, and more than 90% of the world's morbidity and deaths occur.
African malaria children dying in pain Source: Network
"According to the statistics released by the World Health Organization in 2019, malaria is currently endemic in 93 countries in the world, of which Africa is the largest, with 47; followed by Asia, with 21, mainly in Southeast Asia; 20 in Latin America; 4 in Oceania; and 1 in Europe."
Image source: Network
Have you found that there is no China in this list.
Could it be that China escaped this fate?
We wished so, but unfortunately, not.
At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, New China was also plagued by malaria. Especially in the hot and mosquito-infested southern regions, malaria outbreaks are frequent. "Of the 30 million cases per year, about 300,000 people are unfortunately killed, which is very heart-wrenching."
In many villages, women and children are tormented by illness, described as withered, and the scene is shocking.
New China Early Malaria Publicity and Prevention Team
Since 1949, we have been fighting this battle with "it" for 70 years.
Just in 2019, China achieved complete local clearance (zero for 3 consecutive years).
An important turning point in reaching this result came in 1967.
At this time, an important figure appeared.
She was the Chinese scientist who later became famous in the world, along with Einstein and Marie Curie, Tu Youyou.
Around 1967, she officially stepped onto the antimalarial runway.
At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, China was still in a stage of waste waiting to be rebuilt, lacking medical treatment and medicine, and medical conditions were very difficult.
However, in the face of difficulties at home, there has never been the slightest intention of retreating.
There are no conditions to create conditions.
"In October 1949, the Ministry of Health of the Central Military Commission convened the National Health Executive Conference, which made the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases the primary task at that time."
Only 2 years later: "By the end of 1951, the coverage rate of county-level health centers across the country had reached 91.2%. ”
In 1967, in order to save more citizens from the suffering of malaria, the "523 Project" was launched, and more than 500 scientists from 60 institutions across the country raced against time to find new treatments for malaria, including Tu Youyou.
In January 1969, "Tu Youyou" was appointed as the leader of the scientific research team of the antimalarial drug research task.
After that, she broke the time into a second by the second, almost entering a state of "madness".
Image source: Network
No day and no night.
Starting from the medical records, Materia Medica and folk prescriptions of the past generations, nearly 2,000 prescription drugs were collected, and a total of 640 prescriptions were compiled word by word, and quickly distributed to researchers across the country for reference.
Then, experimental research on more than 200 kinds of Chinese medicines was carried out, and after more than 380 failures...
finally! The valuable value of "Artemisia annua" in fighting malaria was identified.
The answer though. However, artemisinin extracted at "high temperature" has little effect. From excitement to the bottom, during that time, Tu Youyou was anxious to sleepless nights.
After another difficult period of exploration, a record of the extraction of malaria was finally found in an ancient Chinese book:
"Hold the artemisia, stain it with two liters of water, twist the juice, and serve it."
She was woken up at once, and low temperature is the key!
"Artemisinin" was extracted.
But the most desperate thing is to climb over one big mountain and find another mountain outside.
When the team tested on animals, they found that artemisinin was effective in some animals, but poisoned others to death.
Time is running out and the issues are tough.
Can't wait any longer, Tu Youyou made a decision - to try the medicine by herself.
No one stopped her, and she was determined to save the Chinese people.
Trial after trial adjustment, that is, during that time, someone found that she was often sick off, and now look at it, I finally know the reason.
In the end, it worked!
In this history of blood and tears in the fight against malaria, we have the weapon of victory for the first time!
And, for Tu Youyou, the price is that her liver and kidneys are all damaged.
In 1986, the first artemisinin drugs were licensed for production.
Tu Youyou and China are well aware of the significance of the "community of human destiny", and the low-cost artemisinin developed with Chinese plants was quickly promoted to the world.
Hundreds of millions of lives around the world have been saved, and countless families have wept bitterly.
After 2000, WHO made artemisinin drugs the antimalarial drug of choice.
In 2015, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Tu Youyou, the highest award in the Chinese medical community to date.
A year later (August 2016), the number of indigenous malaria cases in China was cleared for the first time.
We set our goal of eliminating malaria by 2020 in 2010 ahead of schedule in 2016!
Source: WHO website
Now, China is using its own case to carry out international cooperation for the global elimination of malaria.
Although Tu Youyou is 92 years old, she still adheres to the front line of research and development.
Do what you say, this is China.
The mission will be achieved, and the mission will benefit the world, this is a Chinese scientist.
Chinese scientists and African scientists exchanged Chinese antimalarial experience
However, what was not expected was.
When Tu Youyou received countless heartfelt praises in the world, some people even jointly wrote a letter to the Nobel Prize Committee, accusing Tu Youyou of not being worthy of the Nobel Prize.
Questioning her that she has neither study abroad experience, no doctorate, nor the title of academician, such a "three noes" old lady to win the award, is a fantasy.
What's even more absurd is that these people still Chinese.
Really, the slippery slope.
Any other country that wins an award is a matter of course, and as soon as Chinese themselves, "there is a group of people" who "lead the way" and feel that we are not worthy.
Mr. Lu Xun said in "Have Chinese Lost Self-Confidence": Since ancient times, we have had people who buried their heads in hard work, people who worked hard, people who asked for the people's lives, and people who sacrificed their lives to seek the law... This is the backbone of China.
Mr. Lu Xun also said: The enemy is not enough to be afraid, and the most terrible thing is the moths in their own camps, and many things have been defeated in their hands.
As for the significance of Tu Youyou's breakthrough in artemisinin, an industry insider in the scientific community said:
In the scientific concept, from 1 to 100 is of course very important.
But the most important and irreplaceable is the breakthrough from 0 to 1.
He gave an example, as if it were a mathematical formula, we first know that it can be true is the most important, find the basis for it, and then again and again, it is meaningful to solve it over and over again.
What Tu Youyou did was to take the most critical step from 0 to 1.
And, as for the award, she has long said, "Compared with the award, I have always been gratified that artemisinin has saved the lives of millions of malaria patients around the world." ”
Regarding reputation, she repeatedly stressed that "this is the collective honor of Chinese scientists."
Image source: CCTV News
In her Nobel Prize speech, she thanked the country, the team, and all those who contributed to the development of artemisinin.
But only not to thank yourself.
She said: The only thing I don't thank is myself. Because I am obsessed with artemisinin, I devote a lot of time, energy and emotion to scientific research, and I have not fulfilled the obligations and responsibilities of being a wife and mother.
She refused to be interviewed by countless reporters, and only replied faintly: "Winning awards and becoming famous are all things in the past, and we must work hard."
If such achievements, such people, are not enough, what do "you" want scientists to do?
And, in fact, not only malaria has been eliminated in China, but also more than one scientist has been insulted.
smallpox.
Smallpox was the first infectious disease to be eradicated after the founding of New China.
A team of Chinese scientists invented heat-resistant liquid pox seedlings, solving the problem that vaccines had to be refrigerated and made it difficult to promote in remote and rural areas.
China's smallpox was wiped out, a full 16 years ahead of the world.
poliomyelitis.
In 1955, polio broke out in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, and the victims were all children.
In order to save Chinese children, Gu Fangzhou, the "sugar pill grandfather", used his own children to try medicine. In 1964, the sugar pill vaccine was fully promoted in the mainland.
In 2000, the continent became a polio-free country.
There is also filariasis.
Filariasis is commonly known as "weeviloma". The patient's main symptom is limb and reproductive system deformities.
In 1994, the mainland achieved the goal of basic eradication of filariasis.
In 2007, after review by the World Health Organization, China became the first country in the world to eradicate filariasis.
It can be said that every stage of our development has not stopped fighting the plague. Every time is a hard battle, and every time these "battles" must be won, it is always the scientific researchers and medical personnel who rush to the forefront.
Image source: Network
The same is true of COVID-19.
During the worst period of the epidemic in Wuhan, Academician Zhong Nanshan, who chose to "retrograde" for the first time, was 84 years old;
Zhang Dingyu, the "dean of iron man" who rushed to the front line of the epidemic in Wuhan, is still a patient with frostbite;
Academician Chen Wei, who led the team to study the new crown vaccine day and night, had a wish on her birthday that "there is no choice but to win!" ”；
Just a while ago, the most shocking picture came from professor Wu Zunyou, chief expert of epidemiology at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
In two years, full of black hair, it was all silver.
However, it is very magical that while someone is carrying the weight for us, there are some "moths" that are trying to "eat our spine".
Yin and yang weirdly connotated that the registration fee of Academician Zhong Nanshan was too expensive, and scolded Zhong Nanshan's son for wearing brand-name clothes and not knowing frugality.
There is also Dr. Zhang Wenhong, who was pushed to the altar because of the sentence "Replace all doctors in the post and let the party members go up". Later, there were more words for the people, and the moths began to think that he was "fake" and "famous", and stabbed him with the most ugly words, wanting to embarrass him.
Later, and later, he was silent.
This group of people came to him again, "The epidemic is so serious, why don't you do the right thing?" ”
......
Repeat Lu Xun's words: The enemy is not enough to be afraid, the most terrible thing is the moths in their own camp, and many things have been defeated in their hands.
But, fortunately, moths are a minority.
How fortunate we are that china in every era has such a group of backbones, they:
- "Establish a heart for heaven and earth, establish a destiny for the people, continue to learn from the saints, and open up peace for all the worlds." ”
The point "In Sight" is the backbone of China.