To further popularize animal-caused injury rescue knowledge, deeply understand animal-caused injury rescue strategy, improve the technological level of emergency response for patients injured by animals, especially the preventive handling after rabies exposure, and standardize the work of dog-caused injury outpatient clinics in Wenzhou, our Emergency Department and Wenzhou Disease Control and Prevention Center jointly held the "Third Wenzhou Ouyue Forum of Animal-caused Injury Rescue and 2023 Wenzhou Qualification Training Course for Dog-caused Injury Outpatient Handlers, and Animal-caused Injury Rescue Technology Training Course" in Louqiao Hospital Area on April 22. On the same day, our hospital was approved by Wenzhou Health Commission to officially set up“Wenzhou Animal-caused Injury Rescue Center", with the establishment ceremony held in Louqiao Hospital Area.

The opening ceremony of this forum was hosted by Deputy Chief Surgeon Lv Wang of Emergency Department, who is in charge of Animal-caused Injury Rescue Center of our hospital. Vice President Chen Jie of Wenzhou People's Hospital, delivered a welcome speech, and Zheng Yunqiang, member of the Party Committee and deputy director of Wenzhou Health Commission, made a speech. Those who were also present at the opening ceremony were Yu Xianghua, deputy director of Wenzhou Disease Control and Prevention Center, Ni Chaorong, director of Infectious Disease Prevention Station, Zhang Xueliang, director of Medical Matters Department, Chen Linglong, director of Emergency Department of our hospital, as well as a number of specialists and professors. After the opening of the forum, a grand ceremony was held to celebrate the official establishment of "Wenzhou Animal-caused Injury Rescue Center" in Wenzhou People's Hospital.

The forum gathered big names, also a number of well-known domestic experts in the animal-caused injury rescue field were specially invited to give instruction, including Professor Dong Guanmu, director of NO.1 Vaccine Room of National Institutes for Food and Drug Control, Dr Sun Jimin, director of Infectious Disease Prevention Station of Zhejiang Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Zhejiang CDC), as well as Professor Wang Yonggao, snake-caused injury specialist of Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, etc. About 350 participants from 10 counties (cities and districts) of Wenzhou attended this Ouyue Forum. During the one-day forum, Professor Dong Guanmu, Dr Sun Jimin, Professor Wang Yonggao, Director Chen Linglong, Director Lv Wang, and Dr Chen Zheyan delivered lectures on special topics, such as "Development History and New Application Progress of Rabies Vaccines", "Rabies Epidemic Situation, and Standardized Construction of Dog-caused Injury Clinics in Zhejiang Province", "Standardized Rescue and Treatment of Venomous Snake Bites", "Diagnosis and Treatment of Anaphylactic Shocks", "Analysis of Hot Topics in Post-exposure Prophylaxis of Rabies", "Clinical Application of Immunoglobulin", "Cosmetic Surgery of Animal-caused Wounds". Finally, the lecturers tried their best to answer all participants’ questions by combining the guidelines with their own experience.

This forum attracted a large number of participants, and all the students were very keen to learn. The forum is featured with rich, wonderful and practical content, which has built a good exchange platform for the majority of clinical staff working in the field of animal-cause injury rescue and treatment to let them have deep understanding of the progress of the diagnosis and treatment of animal-caused injuries through learning and exchange, and to provide guidance for clinical practice. Trainees said they had gained a lot from this rewarding forum. After the training course, all the trainees participated in the examination, and obtained Wenzhou dog-caused injury exposure handler qualification certificate with the qualified examination results. 

In addition, Wenzhou People's Hospital officially set up "Wenzhou Animal-caused Injury Rescue Center" at this forum. The "Center" is located in Emergency Medicine Department, which consists of Emergency Medicine Department, Orthopedics Department, Plastic Surgery Department, TCM Department, Dermatology Department to jointly conduct diagnosis and treatment by coordinating between different departments. The "Center" offers technological services in rabies vaccination, tetanus vaccination, antivenin application, animal-caused wound treatment, complex animal-caused wound treatment, and animal-caused wound cosmetic surgery, etc. The Center has accumulated rich clinical experience in the treatment of anaphylactic shocks, coagulation dysfunctions and multi organ failure (MOF), and many of its techniques have reached the advanced level in Zhejiang Province. Our hospital will take the establishment of the Center as a new starting point, give full play to the role of the rescue center, further optimize the treatment process of dog-caused injury clinics of general hospitals, continue to promote the clinical pathway work of animal-caused injury diagnosis and treatment of Wenzhou, so as to better meet the public's demand for healthcare services, help to improve the treatment level of animal-caused injury, and provide all-around and full-cycle high-quality diagnosis and treatment services. In the future, we will also create a regional animal-caused injury treatment network to promote synergistic development of the city, counties, districts and basic-level departments, and provide more standardized better quality animal-caused injury medical services for the whole region of Wenzhou and more patients.