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Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) as a novel
coronavirus, causes the outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
leading to approximately 1.86 million confirmed infected cases and over
702,642 deaths worldwide, as of Aug 6, 2020 1. The
COVID-19 also yields severe nosocomial infection, with an astonishing
amount of 230,000 infections globally in healthcare workers2. In China, to triage the potential infected cases
and prevent nosocomial infection, whoever has symptoms including fever,
cough, and shortness of breath, will be first sent to special fever
clinics. Fever clinics were initially established for the combat of
severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 20023. They are designed to provide prompt assessment,
management, laboratory examination and decision-making for the potential
infected cases, which serves as the crucial first-line of defense to
control nosocomial infection 4. China has set up
approximately 15,000 fever clinics so far 5. As of
February 3, 2020, data from the National Health Commission of the
People’s Republic of China showed that a total of 220,865 people had
visited fever clinics across the Chinese mainland 6.
Guided by the primary principle of ‘early assessment, early detection,
and early isolation’, fever clinics played a significant role in
triaging suspected cases and minimize the risk of nosocomial infection
during the COVID-19 combat in China 4. However, fever
clinics failed to function normally as expected; for instance, a total
of 1,101 healthcare providers in Wuhan had been infected as of February
6, 2020 7. In this comment, we systematically
evaluated the current limitations of fever clinics and provided several
potential solutions, aiming to enhance and maximize the capability and
capacity of fever clinics for acute infectious diseases. Main results
were summarized in Figure 1 for an easy-to-use purpose.