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Chinese experts leave momentous legacies in fighting COVID-19 in Iraq

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2020-04-27 08:44:11Xinhua Editor : Gu Liping ECNS App Download
Special: Battle Against Novel Coronavirus

After 50 days of hard work, a Chinese team of experts Sunday ended their mission to help tackle the COVID-19 epidemic in Iraq.

At the invitation of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, the seven-member Chinese team of experts worked from March 7 to April 26 in Iraq.

After years of war and conflicts, Iraq's health system has been fragile, suffering from damages to hospitals and other medical infrastructure, as well as facing a shortage of medical professionals and supplies.

Without national prevention and control mechanism against the pandemic, the worn-torn country faces mounting challenges to contain the outbreak.

However, the Chinese team has made significant achievements in boosting Iraq's testing capacity and strengthening its capabilities to contain COIVD-19.

Chinese experts have visited from Basra in southern Iraq to the Kurdistan region in the north, conducting in-depth field investigations in nine of Iraq's 18 provinces and guiding local health officials and experts to curb the outbreaks.

On March 25, a new PCR (polymerase chain reaction) lab built by the Chinese experts, based on Chinese donation of nucleic acid test kits and other equipment, was inaugurated in the Medical City in downtown Baghdad.

As of Saturday, the lab has completed over 7,000 diagnosis tests.

The Chinese assistance also included advanced medical screening equipment such as mobile X-ray and CT, which are accurate in detecting COVID-19.

The Chinese experts have installed an advanced CT scanner at a quarantine center in al-Shifaa Hospital in eastern Baghdad and trained the Iraqi health workers to operate the device.

In the past 50 days, the Chinese expert team has met more than 200 Iraqi health officials, conducted 27 video training and face-to-face guidance, and trained some 1,000 local medical staff.

Moreover, Chinese experts have brought China's front-line prevention and control experience against the deadly virus and instructed their Iraqi counterparts to carry out clinical diagnosis, case treatment, and infection prevention in hospital settings.

"We are very obliged," Iraqi Health Minister Jaafar Sadiq Allawi told Xinhua that Chinese experts "were very supportive in the fight against the pandemic in Iraq. They passed on their experience, trained our medical personnel, built a nucleic acid testing lab, CT scanner, and mobile X-Ray machines for Iraq."

"It is vital, and was a changing moment for Iraq to have such assistance and experts with their best practices to support the Iraqi health system," Yasin Ahmed Abbas, head of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) told Xinhua.

"I am sure Chinese aid is a real interpretation of friendship when you stand with me in the crises. This is a proof for the keen friendship of the Chinese people to Iraq, so thank you China," Abbas said.

Farid Abdulkadir, country representative of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Iraq said that "we are learning from China who has actually made success in the fighting against COVID-19."

"We have been benefiting from the measures implemented by the Chinese medical experts and the therapeutic protocol that was used in China," said Sinan Mahdi, director of the Center for Communicable Disease Control. Enditem

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