Chinese doctors held face-to-face talks with officials from the World Health Organization in Algeria, to discuss the COVID-19 situation there. The Chinese medical team is in the country to share information about coronavirus treatments. CGTN’s He Weiwei compiled the following report from Algiers.
The meeting between doctors from China and WHO officials in Algeria lasted for two hours. Algeria has one of the highest numbers of COVID-19 cases in Africa…. nearly eight-thousand. It’s currently seeing a daily increase of about 180 new cases.
Francois Bla Nguessan, Representative of the World Health Organization in Algeria:
“The WHO headquarters in Geneva sent six experts to Algeria in January under my supervision to provide necessary support.”
“Severe cases is not that much important for the time being. Many of the important cases are mild or moderate cases, few of them seems to be severe cases, so the load of the health system is not that high or extreme,” Thierno Balde, Incident Manager of the World Health Organization for COVID-19.
China has so far sent about 20 medical teams to various countries to help combat the virus. This is the first time that one of those teams has met directly with the WHO.
Zhou Lin, Head, Chinese Medical Expert Team to Algeria: “We visited the Health Ministry, Central Pharmacy and some hospitals. We feel that the situation of the coronavirus in the country is stable and controllable.”
“We’re the WHO classified Emergency Medical Team. We hope through this meeting, we’ll have an opportunity to collaborate with WHO Algeria country office,” O Leong, Deputy Head, Chinese Medical Expert Team to Algeria.
The meeting comes after Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged two billion dollars over the next two years to help other countries fight the pandemic and to accelerate the building of Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
