China contributes to global scientific research on COVID-19 for shared future

By People's Daily

The value of putting lives first is closely binding up China with the rest of the world, as every effort made in the COVID-19 pandemic by the world aims at saving lives.

Facing the sudden outbreak of the pandemic, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping called on the whole nation to be united, take science-based and targeted measures against the epidemic, and have confidence in conquering the virus.

China has strictly followed science-based approaches and considered how to improve the recovery rate and lower mortality as the most urgent task in relevant scientific studies. While treating the patients, the country summarized experiences and made improvement, compiling seven editions of diagnosis and treatment protocol for COVID-19 and six editions of prevention and control plan in just 50 days. According to incomplete statistics, Chinese experts have published over 1,100 papers on English academic journals.

These valuable experiences gained at huge sacrifice and cost have been shared with more than 180 countries, as well as around a dozen international and regional organizations without reservation, bringing hope to the world in defeating the virus.

These are hard-won experiences. A Wuhan citizen named Cai Yaqing, as well as her father who passed away because of the novel coronavirus pneumonia both contributed to the scientific studies on the disease. Cai donated her father's body to the makeshift hospital Huoshenshan for pathological anatomy. She wrote on the donation agreement that this decision would create more possibilities for other patients, saying her father would have definitely agreed had he known his body could help the others.

It was the patients who donated plasma immediately after they recovered, and those who were still grieving over the deaths of their relatives but agreed to body donation that enabled China to establish the world's first pathological sample base of COVID-19 and helped improve the recovery rate of critically ill patients in Wuhan from 14 percent to 89 percent.

By timely sharing medical experiences and results with the world, China hopes to put an end to the pandemic as early as possible, so that there will be no more families torn apart. This reflects the sense of morality of China, and the glittering humanity of the Chinese people.

"What shall we do if the nucleic acid test results change?" "When shall we use noninvasive and invasive ventilators?" "What are the standards of nutrition support?" These are questions raised to Chinese medical experts dispatched to Ethiopia for pandemic relief by local medical workers at Eka Kotebe Hospital, the largest designated facility for receiving COVID-19 patients in the country. All of them were answered in details by the Chinese experts.

During the pandemic, China has put into practice the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind and made every effort to advance global scientific cooperation, to cope with the global crisis with the world. It shared the genetic sequencing of the virus, as well as specific primers and probes for detection of the novel coronavirus with the world at the first opportunity, established an online knowledge center for COVID-19 containment that is open to all countries, and organized pandemic prevention teleconferences with experts from different parts of the world.

Bolivian Health Minister Anibal Cruz said China's selfless sharing has provided reference for many countries and regions in the pandemic, and Malaysian virologist Lam Sai Kit pointed out that it was China's timely sharing of the genetic sequencing that helped global scientists carry out relevant studies so rapidly. Everything that China shared, from prevention to diagnosis and treatment, was valuable and effective, said doctors with Italy's Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases.

The only real competitor for domination of the planet remains the viruses, said a Nobel Prize winner. To defeat the viruses calls for science and cooperation. Countries promoted the development of modern medicines by cooperating with each other to fight the 1918 flu pandemic, and came to realize the importance of establishing international cooperation mechanisms.

In the 1960s, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Smallpox Eradication Programme, which was participated by both the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and finally eliminated the virus from the world. In today's world, where countries are closely interconnected, we need more than ever a globalized method to resist the global pandemic. As Yuval Harari, the author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind has put forward, history indicates that real protection comes from the sharing of reliable scientific information, and from global solidarity. United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also reiterated that "This is a time for science and solidarity."

This spring, China has launched epic cooperation with the world, from Rome to Belgrade, from Teheran to Islamabad, and from the shore of the Black Sea to the cape of Africa. The joint efforts to save lives, the joint research to develop vaccines and the teleconferences to share experiences all indicated the close interdependence of global countries, as well as the sense of responsibility of China. China has proposed to build a community of common health for mankind, because it empathizes with the world in the pandemic, because it believes science is the most powerful weapon against the virus, and because it has a firm faith that international cooperation is the only way out.

Lives are vulnerable to the pandemic, but humans are tough in fighting against it. Only by discarding prejudices and removing misunderstanding can the world become more caring and powerful.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic recently remarked that the Chinese expert team had spent six weeks in Serbia and visited all major cities with infection cases, and the Serbians are not alone any longer because of them.

Cooperation leads to hope and sheds light that illuminates the darkness with mutual assistance, coordination and civilization.