FEATURE ‘When you talk about public health, it is a global problem. You cannot close your door and say you will do this by yourself.’ Professor Leo Poon Lit-man successes made us able to face the battle of COVID-19,’ Professor Yuen said. Collaboration is another essential ingredient, particularly with Mainland and global partners such as the World Health Organization, said Professor Poon, who has been working on EIDs for more than two decades to understand the evolution of coronaviruses in animals and how they jump into humans. With SARS-CoV-2, he helped to develop assay protocols to detect the virus, showed that pet hamsters and humans could infect each other, and demonstrated that COVID-19 vaccines do not prevent infections but reduce the severity of clinical outcomes. ‘We have been working with a lot of people around the world to discover new viruses and the knowledge we have accumulated over the past 20 years helped us to contribute on COVID-19. When you talk about public health, it is a global problem. You cannot close your door and say you will do this by yourself. We need partners and respond to different stakeholders,’ Professor Poon said. The International Jury of the Pasteur Prize highlighted the success of this approach, saying that ‘Professor Poon embodies Louis Pasteur’s vision of science without borders.’ Dr Kathy Leung Sze-man of the School of Public Health, a more recent recruit who was mentored at HKUMed and named by Nature Medicine last December as one of the ‘11 Early-Career Researchers to Watch’, similarly relies on teamwork with external partners. She used her expertise in mathematical modelling and data to help HKUMed develop an epidemic nowcasting system for COVID-19 in Hong Kong that describes the current situation and predicts trends. ‘We relied heavily on various data streams including daily Octopus card use as the mobility index, viral loads from wastewater surveillance by the Environmental Protection Department, case reports from the Centre for Health ←The International Jury awarded the LP200 Prize to Professor Leo Poon Lit-man, Division Head of Public Health Laboratory Sciences, School of Public Health, for ‘the essential contributions of Professor Poon to preparedness, research, collaboration and commitment to the Pasteur Network, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.’ 10
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