Schistosomiasis is one of the major infectious diseases that is extremely widely transmitted and seriously endangers the health of our people and social and economic development, and has a history of epidemic in China for more than 2,000 years. In the south of China, especially in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, schistosomiasis has been raging for a long time, leaving people with unforgettable and painful memories, and Yujiang County, Jiangxi Province, was a serious epidemic area of schistosomiasis in history. Before liberation, where schistosomiasis infected, people died. Those who were lucky enough to be alive for the time being were also tortured one by one to the point that their stomachs were like drums, their bones were like firewood, their men were not born, and their women were infertile. In Yujiang County, Jiangxi Province, there was a folk song that said: "The body is not three feet long, the face is dry and yellow, the person is in the threshold, and the stomach is out of the room." "Two pounds of iron with a hoe, when you get it in your hand, you have to rest, go down to the field and stick it, and when you don't reach the head of the field, you want to be sleepy." In the first thirty years before liberation alone, Yujiang County had 20,000 acres of barren land, 25,000 people died of this disease, forty-two villages were destroyed, and many places became "no man's lands", "dead graves", "widow villages" and "widows' villages" where ghosts laughed and howled, and reached the situation of "the relics of the thousand villages of Xueli people, and the singing of thousands of Xiao Shu ghosts".
In March 1951, Comrade Mao Zedong sent people to Yujiang County to investigate, and for the first time confirmed That Yujiang County as a schistosomiasis epidemic county.
In April 1953, he sent medical personnel to Magang Township, Yujiang County, to conduct key experimental research on the prevention and treatment of schistosomiasis.
In September 1953, Shen Junru, who was recuperating in Shanghai, found that schistosomiasis was rampant in some of the surrounding rural areas, so he wrote a letter to Comrade Mao Zedong, suggesting that the prevention and control of schistosomiasis should be strengthened and improved.
At that time, the disease was endemic in almost half of China, Jiangsu and other 12 provinces and cities in 350 counties and cities, the number of people affected by the disease was about 10 million, and the population threatened by infection was more than 100 million. In areas with severe diseases, there have even been cases of the death of entire households and entire villages. In Xinmin Township, Gaoyou County, Jiangsu Province, between 1950 and 1951, 1,006 people died of illness, accounting for 18.2% of the total population of the township, of which 31 families died.
Faced with such a grim situation, Mao Zedong was worried. He quickly replied to Shen Junru: "Schistosomiasis is very harmful, and it must be focused on prevention and control. ”
Mao Zedong sent a letter to Shen Junru on the prevention and control of schistosomiasis
In November 1955, when he summoned the secretaries of the East China and Central and Southern Provinces in Hangzhou to a meeting to study agricultural problems, he specially summoned Xu Yunbei, vice minister of health, to ask him to report in detail on the prevention and control of schistosomiasis. While listening to the report, he emphatically pointed out: "With so many patients and so many endemic areas, to realize the seriousness of schistosomiasis, we must eliminate schistosomiasis." "The broad masses of peasants have turned over and organized themselves to develop production, and we must help them overcome serious diseases." "It is not enough to rely on the health department alone, and a leading group for the prevention and control of schistosomiasis must be established under the unified leadership of the party committee."
Mao Zedong personally led and deployed the fight to eliminate schistosomiasis, and in February 1956, he put forward a call at the Supreme State Council: "The whole party mobilizes, the whole people mobilize, to eliminate schistosomiasis." ”
Under the personal leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong, the epidemic prevention work was regarded as a major political task and implemented. The whole country immediately took action and launched a people's war to eliminate vampire worm disease.
In December 1955, Yujiang County set up a five-member blood prevention group of the county party committee with the secretary of the county party committee as the leader and the deputy secretary of the county party committee as the deputy leader.
In February and September 1956, a nine-member group for the prevention and control of schistosomiasis directly under the central government was established. The Central Nine-Member Blood Defense Group and the Ministry of Health of the State Council, in accordance with the instructions of Comrade Mao Zedong, twice organized expert inspection teams to come to Yujiang to inspect the blood prevention work; In this year alone, the Provincial Health Department twice dispatched sixty-three doctors from provincial hospitals to Yujiang to treat the people in the epidemic area free of charge.
In July 1957, the Schistosomiasis Prevention and Control Bureau of the Ministry of Health was established in Shanghai, which was co-located with the Office of the Central Leading Group for the Prevention and Control of Schistosomiasis to strengthen coordination and cooperation among various schistosomiasis control institutions.
A large-scale investigation by the health department and relevant localities found that there is a Baita River in the local area that flows through more than two hundred miles, gathers thousands of thin streams, and rushes to the YuJiang River, which is blocked by the Lion Rock that is entrenched in the river. Due to the artificially excavated passage, it is long-term siltation, poor water flow, and overgrown with weeds, which is suitable for snail breeding, thus forming an epidemic area flooded with schistosomiasis.
After a variety of experiments, the people of Yujiang finally found the fundamental measures to fill the old ditch, open a new ditch, completely bury the nail snail, and eradicate schistosomiasis forever. From 1955 to 1958, they put in 2.31 million jobs, opened 88 new ditches, filled in 370 old ditches, 503 old ponds, moved 4.16 million square meters of earth, eliminated the area of nail snails of 966,640 square meters, plus a combination of fecal pipes and treatment, in just four years, they achieved a complete victory in the eradication of schistosomiasis that had never been seen in ancient times, dozens of official towns were all filled, the stone mountains on the edge of Lion Rock were dug through, and the water of the Baita River flowed to all parts of the Yujiang River through the newly opened East Canal, the West Canal and the New Canal. The snails have disappeared, the peasants' feet are no longer itchy, and the turquoise Baita River irrigates more than 200,000 mu of grass seedlings, so that the drought and flood protection and stable yield and high-yield farmland reach more than 95% of the total farmland. The scene of the battle between the heavens and the earth is just like Mao Zedong said: "The silver hoe of the five ridges in the sky falls, and the earth moves the iron arm of the three rivers." ”
In May 1958, the Central Committee and the Jiangxi Provincial Research Committee for the Prevention and Control of Schistosomiasis sent experts and professors to Yujiang for a review and issued the "Identification Certificate for the Eradication of Schistosomiasis"; on the 25th, the Yujiang County Party Committee sent a telegram to the Party Central Committee to eradicate schistosomiasis; on June 30, the People's Daily issued a telegram to the Party Central Committee on the eradication of schistosomiasis; on June 30, the People's Daily issued a telegram entitled "First. "Red Flag" as the title, announced to the world: Yujiang County eliminated schistosomiasis. Comrade Mao Zedong read the "People's Daily" on this day, and he was full of thoughts, unable to sleep at night, gladly ordered his pen and wrote a glorious poem" "Sending the Plague God."
Reading the People's Daily on June 30, Yujiang County eliminated schistosomiasis. Imagination, sleepless nights. The breeze is blowing and the sun is shining at the window. Looking at the southern sky, I gladly ordered the pen.
One
Green water and green mountains are self-defeating, Hua Tuo helpless little worm He!
Thousands of villages are left behind, and thousands of xiaoshu ghosts sing.
Sit on the ground and travel eighty thousand miles a day, survey the sky and look at a thousand rivers.
Niu Lang wanted to ask about the plague god, just as sad and happy as the waves of death.
Second
There are thousands of spring wind willows, and 600 million Shenzhou is shunyao.
The red rain turns into waves at will, and the green mountains turn into bridges.
Tianlian Wuling silver hoe fell, and the earth moved the three rivers iron arm to shake.
Asking the plague king where he wanted to go, the paper boat burned brightly in the sky.