Richard Doll Seminar - The impact of COVID-19 outbreak on mortality in Wuhan, the epicentre of pandemic in China

Zhengming Chen is Professor of Epidemiology based at NDPH, Oxford University. He qualified in medicine at Shanghai Medical University in 1983 and gained DPhil in Epidemiology at the University of Oxford in 1992. His research has mainly focused on the lifestyle, environmental and genetic determinants of common diseases, development of evidence-based medicine and efficient strategies for disease control (e.g. tobacco control) in developing countries. From his base in Oxford, he has led and conducted several large nationwide collaborative studies in China, including randomised trials of treatments for heart attack, stroke and cancer, and prospective cohort studies of common diseases in adults. In particular, he initiated, and has led since its inception the China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB), which includes >512,000 adults recruited from 10 diverse areas across China during 2004-08. Through these projects, he has established close collaboration with China CDC and a number of other institutes and universities in China. Based on the data from China CDC’s nationwide Disease Surveillance Point (DSP) system, the talk will examine the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on cause-specific mortality in China during 2019-2020, particularly in Wuhan city, the epicenter of pandemic where the COVID-19 cases were first reported during late 2019. The evidence has also informed the investigation by WHO into the origin of COVID-19.