Virus just one more woe to contend with

Chinese assistance and expertise warmly welcomed in the Middle East

CAIRO－The spread of COVID-19 is now posing an especially severe challenge to the Middle East, where chronic wars, sanctions, famine, financial collapse and political unrest have hampered preventive efforts against the virus.

Tens of thousands of novel coronavirus cases have been registered in the region, Iran alone having more than 35,000 cases. Cases have also been reported in Syria and Libya, where wars rage and multitudes of displaced people are acutely vulnerable to diseases.

At such a critical moment, some Chinese medics are fighting alongside their Middle Eastern counterparts, and Chinese expertise and supplies have been warmly welcomed as the region fights the pandemic.

In Iraq's capital, Baghdad, a new polymerase chain reaction laboratory is ready to be put into use. The laboratory, set up recently with the help of Chinese experts, is expected to greatly improve the war-torn country's capacity to identify cases.

"Testing ability in Iraq is far from enough," said Yang Honghui, who arrived in Baghdad on March 7 as part of a seven-member Chinese medical team sent by the Red Cross Society of China.

The laboratory, with a Chinese donation of nucleic acid test kits and other equipment, will be able to conduct about 1,000 tests a day, Yang said.

Asaad Mahdi, deputy director general of the Iraqi Ministry of Health, said: "This new laboratory will enhance our ability to deal with this pandemic for the residents of Baghdad who make up to about 20 percent of Iraq's population."

Iran, the worst-hit country in the Middle East, also benefited from on-site help of the Chinese experts, the Red Cross Society of China arriving in Teheran on Feb 29, 10 days after Iran reported its first confirmed case.

The Chinese medics returned to China last week after concluding their mission there.

"During the 27 days in Iran we could feel the friendship between the two peoples, and our work was widely appreciated," said team leader Zhou Xiaohang.

Zhou, head of the Disaster Relief and Health Department of the Shanghai Branch of the Red Cross Society of China, said Chinese expertise, including on nationwide mobilization, home quarantine, and full screening and testing of suspected cases, and centralized treatment of patients, had been applied in Iran.

China has delivered aid to other countries in the region, too. A batch of medical supplies and equipment arrived in Tunisia on Saturday, medical supplies that a Chinese company donated arrived in Algeria on Friday, and a Chinese bank announced the same day that it was donating medical supplies and cash to Turkey.

Friends in adversity

Two mobile cabin hospitals have been set up in Iran, said Wu Huanyu, a member of the expert team and professor with Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

"And more mobile hospitals will be built."

In a video conference on Thursday, Chinese medical experts spoke to their counterparts in several Middle Eastern countries including Libya, Turkey, Lebanon and Syria about fighting the pandemic.

"We discussed the Chinese plan in dealing with the coronavirus and the way to treat the infected people and suspected cases," said Samir Nairat, director of Jenin Government Hospital in the West Bank.

As the virus spread in the world, the conference was well timed, Nairat said.

Chinese medical teams and aid supplies have also been sent to Europe and Africa.

On Saturday a group of Chinese medical workers from Shandong province arrived in London to assist in the fight against COVID-19.

Of the medical supplies and equipment from China that arrived in Tunisia on Saturday, the country's presidency said: "China has responded without hesitation to the presidency's request to protect the medical and paramedical staff, as well as all agents of various other sectors who are standing in the frontline of this war that all humanity is fighting."

Xinhua - Agencies