China calls for scale-up of assistance to Ebola-hit countries

A Chinese envoy on Thursday called on the international community to double its efforts in tackling Ebola epidemic and scale up assistance to affected countries in West Africa.

At a General Assembly meeting on Ebola, Wang Min, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, said it is important that commitments already made be implemented "in a speedy manner" so that all the assistance can reach people in the affected areas as soon as possible.

Partners are called upon to provide not only "hard assistance" such as food, epidemic prevention material and means of transportation, but more importantly "soft assistance" like experts, health care workers and Ebola prevention and treatment technics, he said.

"It is also necessary to make additional contribution to the United Nations Ebola Multi-Partner Trust Fund," he said. "At the same time, efforts should be made on researching and developing Ebola vaccines and drugs."

The Chinese envoy also called for more efforts to establish Ebola data collection and analysis system in the affected areas and make continuous improvement of this system. "The collected information should be shared among all member states in a timely fashion," he added.

The ambassador also urged the international community to help affected areas and African countries in general strengthen their public health system and capacity building.

"Now that the epidemic is being gradually brought under control, it is necessary to take a long-term approach by helping affected countries in West Africa rebuild their health system and restore social stability and economic development," he said.

China has provided large amount of emergency assistance, Wang continued, expressing the country's support for the government and people of West African countries in confronting the Ebola crisis

According to the envoy, China has so far provided cumulative assistance totaling 750 million yuan (about 122.5 million U.S. dollars), including 6 million U.S. dollars to the United Nations Ebola Response Multi-Partner Trust Fund, making it number one in terms of batches of material provided and teams of medical staff dispatched. At present, more than 200 Chinese experts and medical staff are working on the front-line battling Ebola in the affected countries. Added to this the number of experts and medical staff to be sent in the upcoming fourth round of assistance, the total number of tour of duties completed by Chinese experts and medical staff will exceed 700, making China the leading country in terms of providing experts and medical staff.

According to the arrangement of the fourth round of assistance, China will build a 100-bed treatment center for Liberia and will send 480 medical staff to run and manage this center. China hence becomes the first country to be solely responsible for building, running and managing an Ebola treatment center.