- Zhang Jixian, a Wuhan respiratory doctor, is hailed as the first doctor to alert the medical system of the novel coronavirus.

- She recalls how the novel coronavirus, an alien pathogen facing mankind, emerged from a seemingly ordinary case of an elderly couple in late December.

by Xinhua writers Yao Yuan, Ma Yujie, Zhou Jialu and Hou Wenkun

WUHAN, April 16 -- The devil is in the details. In the case of Zhang Jixian, hailed as the first doctor to alert the medical system of the novel coronavirus, the devil that later snowballed into a raging epidemic was found in a CT scan.

Zhang Jixian, director of the respiratory and critical care medicine department of Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, receives an interview at the hospital in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, March 2, 2020. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

Zhang, a veteran respiratory doctor in a Wuhan hospital, recalled how the novel coronavirus, an alien pathogen facing mankind, emerged from a seemingly ordinary case of an elderly couple in late December.

On Dec. 26, an elderly couple from a nearby community visited the Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine. Their symptoms included fever, coughing and tiredness, which "looked like flu or common pneumonia," recalled Zhang, director of the hospital's respiratory and critical care medicine department.

But when their CT scan images reached Zhang the next day, the 54-year-old doctor noticed features that are different from flu or common pneumonia.

SPECIAL PATIENTS

Zhang's experience during the 2003 SARS outbreak, when she worked as a medical expert investigating suspected patients in Wuhan, made her sensitive to signs of an epidemic. After reading the CT images of the elderly couple, she summoned their son, demanding a CT scan of him too.

"At first their son refused to be examined. He showed no symptoms or discomfort, and believed we were trying to cheat money out of him," said Zhang.