On 30 January 2020, SCO Secretary-General Vladimir Norov noted, while replying to a question from a representative of Xinhua news agency, that the global public was now focusing on the pneumonia epidemic caused by a new type of coronavirus. The epidemic broke out in the city of Wuhan. The SCO Secretariat, which is located in Beijing, the capital city of China, is closely following the current developments. It is noteworthy that President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping and the country's Government attach great significance to combating the epidemic and have taken prompt and resolute action to contain it, Mr Norov noted.
The rapid construction of two hospitals for treating pneumonia patients is underway in Wuhan. The hospitals are modelled after a clinic built to treat patients with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Beijing, and are expected to start operating on 3 and 5 February 2020.
About 6,000 medical specialists have arrived from various Chinese regions to combat the coronavirus epidemic in Hubei Province. Today, medical specialists are persistently and selflessly dealing with the epidemic in Hubei Province and all other Chinese regions.
China has established close cooperation with the relevant agencies of SCO member countries and other foreign countries in an effort to develop a vaccine and medications against the new coronavirus.
People all over China have responded positively to the Government's call and have taken deliberate efforts to protect themselves. Shops and marketplaces have enough staple foods and other essentials. It is life as usual in China, and there is no panic among the population, the SCO Secretary-General said.
Against the backdrop of the current quarantine, Chinese authorities have also done their best, so that all of the country's residents and representatives of foreign countries would be able to obtain the most reliable and timely information about the current situation. China's technological giants, including Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance, are also actively involved in efforts to fight the coronavirus. Mega-popular messenger WeChat has launched a mini-app for notifying people about new viral outbreaks, and the Tiktok app offers video tips on how to correctly protect oneself during this period.
China's friends throughout the world are worried in connection with the pneumonia epidemic caused by the new coronavirus. The international community and Chinese nationals living abroad are providing all-round assistance and are sending material and financial resources to help the country fight the spread of the coronavirus.
The SCO Secretary-General praised the Chinese Government's resolute and effective measures to check the spread of the epidemic, as well as its openness and transparency. This reflects a high degree of responsibility and concern for the life and health of the Chinese people, as well as an important contribution of the country with a population of 1.4 billion to expanding the regional and global healthcare system.
In this connection, a statement by PRC President Xi Jinping at a meeting with World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that the safety of people's lives and their health always remain a top priority and that it is therefore necessary to prevent and control the new coronavirus outbreak at this stage merits special attention. China is ready to cooperate with WHO and the entire international community to uphold regional and global public health safety.
SCO Secretary-General Vladimir Norov expressed confidence that, acting under the guidance of PRC President Xi Jinping, the wise, strong and hard-working Chinese nation would be able to stop the spread of the epidemic in the near future and would completely succeed in fighting it.