China’s actions make the world safer: WHO chief
By Li Lin, Kang Pu
China is not only
protecting the lives and health of its own people, but also showing a strong
sense of responsibility for global public health security, said Chinese
President Xi Jinping on a phone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel
Macron on Feb. 18.
China is a
responsible country. It has the confidence, capacity and determination to win
this battle against the epidemic by the unity of its people, its institutional
strength in concentrating resources for major undertakings, as well as its
strong material and technological capacities and rich experience.
By taking powerful
measures of epidemic prevention and control, China has successfully avoided
further spread of the novel coronavirus in the rest of the world.
The timely epidemic
information released by China was a major contribution made by the country.
Since the onset of the epidemic, Chinese scientists have raced against the
clock and achieved quick identification of the pathogens, and shared the sequencing
with the World Health Organization (WHO).
They published the whole
genome sequence in open knowledge bases, providing free access for global scientific researchers,
which has won valuable time for the international community to prepare diagnostic
tools to test cases and take further steps.
Besides, the country
pays high attention on the epidemic development in other countries. Through bilateral
and multilateral mechanisms, it has maintained close communication and strengthened
cooperation with various countries to make all-out efforts to combat the
epidemic.
China’s efforts
effectively curbed the wider spread of the epidemic. In the country, prevention
and control policies were implemented synchronously, no matter in remote
villages or urban communities. Besides, both modern technologies and
conventional methods were applied to better suit different situations. These
policies have all been strictly implemented at various levels, from central
government to primary-level communities.
Thanks to these
efforts, positive results in epidemic prevention and control have been achieved
in recent days. The epicenter Hubei province is seeing a declining number of
new confirmed cases, and that outside the province has been falling for 15
consecutive days. Such performance is noteworthy as it was achieved when
enterprises across the country were gradually resuming production.
China requested all
travel agencies and online tour operators across the country to suspend group
tours and flight & hotel packages, forcefully cutting the spread of the
virus and panic to the rest of the world.
This was a hard
choice for China, especially when more and more Chinese are joining outbound
trips during the Spring Festival holiday these years. Over 7 million overseas
trips were made by Chinese tourists during the 7-day holiday last year.
China’s measures
have been fully recognized and highly commended by WHO and many countries.
Compared with Hubei province and its capital Wuhan, the rest of the world is
safer, said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that China
has offered a “window of opportunity” for the world, and the actions of the
country are making the world safer.
Macron expressed his
high appreciation for China's timely and vigorous efforts, as well as its high
degree of openness and transparency. And UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson also
gave high evaluation on China's comprehensive and effective efforts and timely
sharing of information to curb the global spread of the virus.
China is on the
frontline of the battle against the epidemic, and to curb epidemics calls for
international cooperation, especially at this critical moment. That is why the
WHO has reiterated the importance of avoiding overreaction.
In the era of globalization,
the destinies and futures of countries around the world are closely related,
and only cooperation can make the world safer, securer and more prosperous.
(Li Lin and
Kang Pu are commentators of People's Daily Overseas Edition.)
China’s actions make the world safer: WHO chief
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