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Kurdistan
KRG officials with Erbil's Chinese Consul General Ni Ruchi at Erbil International Airport. Photo : Mehdi Faraj/Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Beijing delivered a consignment of 1,008 coronavirus testing kits to the Kurdistan Region on Tuesday to help health authorities contain the outbreak.
The cargo arrived at Erbil International Airport on Tuesday morning and was received by Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) health minister Dr. Saman Barzanji and Chinese Consul General to Erbil Ni Ruchi.
Speaking at a press conference at the airport on Tuesday, Barzanji thanked the Chinese government for its aid delivery.
“It is a great message from the people of China to the people of the Kurdistan Region,” Barzanji said. “They have promised that they will provide more important support.”
“On March 27, a group of three or four Chinese experts that are now in Baghdad will visit the Kurdistan Region to evaluate the state of the spread of coronavirus in the Kurdistan Region and to evaluate the mechanisms of dealing with the disease by the health ministry,” he added.
The coronavirus outbreak first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019 before spreading across the globe. As of Tuesday, China has confirmed 81,514 infections and 3,274 deaths.
Now Beijing is taking the lead as the world’s top donor of medical supplies and expertise to help other virus-hit nations cope with the outbreak, particularly Italy.
The Chinese Consulate in Erbil has already donated 300,000 face masks to support health authorities in the Region.
Consul General Ruchi told Tuesday’s press conference the Chinese government will continue to donate medical equipment to the Kurdistan Region.
“The Chinese government will prepare more assistance to the Kurdistan Regional Government and people. And also some of the Chinese companies, they are buying some equipment and things to donate to the Kurdistan government,” Ruchi added.
China used its massive state machinery to turn the tide against the virus in recent weeks, reducing new local infections to zero. It continues to record imported infections, however.
Hubei province plans to lift nearly all lockdown restrictions on Wednesday, while measures will remain in place in the provincial capital, Wuhan, until April 8.
The world will no doubt benefit from China’s experience in fighting the pandemic. However, the international response to the crisis has become a new source of animosity between Washington and Beijing.
“China is now trying to repair its severely damaged international image due to its mishandling of the outbreak in Wuhan in early January,” Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California, told the New York Times last week.
“Donating medical supplies shows China is a responsible and generous world power. It is also touting its success in containing the coronavirus outbreak to suggest its one-party regime is superior to the bumbling democracies in the West, in particular the US.”
With reporting by Mahdi Faraj, translation by Sarkawt Mohammed
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