BEIJING, March 11 (Xinhua) -- After the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic emerged, it has drawn much of the world's attention and triggered global concerns with the numbers of confirmed infections around the world and affected countries climbing.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Feb. 28 raised the risk assessment of COVID-19 from high to very high at the global level.
As of Tuesday, a total of 109 countries and regions outside China have seen confirmed cases of the disease, with over 113,000 cases of infection globally.
This sudden viral outbreak once again reminds the world that, in the era of globalization, all countries' interests are closely interconnected and human society has one shared future.
The COVID-19 epidemic has not only posed a major threat to the safety and health of the Chinese people but also brought a severe challenge to the global public health cause.
Faced with the epidemic, no single country can prosper in isolation or meet all challenges on its own. It is the only choice for global society to uphold the vision of building a community with a shared future for humanity and fight the epidemic side by side.
In a little more than a month, President Xi Jinping talked over the phone with 14 foreign leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and U.S. President Donald Trump, and met with visiting WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen and Mongolian President Khaltmaa Battulga in Beijing.
Xi said China adheres to the concept of building a community with a shared future for humanity as it actively contributes to safeguarding global public health while going all out to protect its people's life and health.
Sharing a common destiny with the whole world, China has been tackling the epidemic in an open and transparent manner. China has shared epidemic-related information in a timely manner, including sharing the genetic sequence of the virus.
Also, China has established close communication mechanisms with the WHO, the European Union, African Union and other organizations as well as relevant countries, promising that China's guidelines on the epidemic control and treatment will be shared in time.
To protect its own people, as well as humanity's shared future, China has undertaken its responsibility by taking the most comprehensive, stringent and thorough prevention and control measures, many of which are well beyond what is required by International Health Regulations and the recommendations of the WHO.
"In many ways, China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response," said Tedros.
A joint expert team consisting of experts from China and the WHO has recently finished a nine-day field study trip in China, after which the expert team heaped praises on China's contributions to the global public health safety.
Suspending outbound traveling for the epicenter of Wuhan and beefing up outbound traveler monitoring, China has done its best to contain the worldwide spread of the virus by keeping the difficulties to itself as far as possible.
Meanwhile, China is not fighting alone. "Fear not the want of armor, for mine is also yours to wear," read the ancient Chinese poetic lines attached to assistance supplies from Japan, which exemplifies the world's firm support for China.
By March 2, a total of 62 countries and seven international organizations have donated epidemic prevention and control materials to China.
As China's domestic epidemic situation shows a positive trend, it has provided some countries with detection kits and donated anti-epidemic supplies, while pledging to share information and experience in a timely manner. The Chinese government has decided to donate 20 million U.S. dollars to the WHO to support it in carrying out international cooperation in fighting the COVID-19.
Currently, the world is still beset by the epidemic, which can only be defeated by more concerted efforts from the global community, including cooperation in drug and vaccine development.
China hopes to step up public health cooperation with the world to interpret the true essence of building a community with a shared future for humanity, which was put forward by President Xi in 2013.
