President Arif Alvi lauds China for fighting coronavirus successfully

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Pakistan’s President Dr Arif Alvi has lauded China for successfully controlling coronavirus and commended both the countries for their cooperation to meet the challenges posed by the pandemic. 

He expressed these views when a group of Chinese medical experts called on him at the President House in Islamabad on April 9. 

According to the details shared by the Chinese embassy in Islamabad, Ambassador Yao Jing and Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood were also present on the occasion. 

The President remarked that since the outbreak of the New Coronary Pneumonia, China and Pakistan have been helping and supporting each other besides working together to respond jointly.

"During mid-March, I visited China where I had fruitful meetings and talks with President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders,” he recalled. 

China has successfully brought down the epidemic in little over two months. 

It was also reported to have notified the World Health Organization (WHO) and other countries when the epidemic started, which allowed time to the rest of the world for preemptive measures. 

China has been assisting Pakistan with a large amount of anti-epidemic materials, having also sent a medical team to Pakistan to help and guide the anti-epidemic work, which fully reflected China's all-weather strategic cooperative partnership and the profound and tested friendship. 

It is being believed that with the help of China, Pakistan will eventually overcome the epidemic without too much damage. 

Ma Minghui, the leader of the expert group, said that in accordance with the spirit of President Xi Jinping ’s important instructions and the consensus of the leaders of the two countries, the Xinjiang Autonomous Region established a medical expert group for Pakistan. 

The experts from China and Pakistan exchanged their experience in epidemic prevention. In the past 10 days, the expert group visited Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and other places, inspected dozens of hospitals in the federal and local areas, and conducted face-to-face meetings with many experts from Pakistan, beside holding a video conference. 

Through the inspections and interactions, the Chinese expert team had a deeper understanding of the Pakistani epidemic prevention work and made some targeted suggestions.