Big countries have a medical responsibility for the world

The 11 members of the 19th batch of the Chinese medical team to Central Africa recently wrote to President Xi Jinping, telling him how they provided medical services to local people.

In his reply, Xi expounded the significance of providing medical aid to foreign countries and extended his sincere greetings to the team, while encouraging them to make greater contributions to improving local healthcare conditions with concrete actions.

Providing medical aid to foreign countries is part of China's contribution to the building of a global community of health for all.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of China dispatching medical teams to foreign countries. Since it sent the first foreign medical team to Algeria in 1963, China has sent 30,000 medical personnel to 76 countries and regions in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and Oceania, providing medical services to 290 million people. At present, Chinese medical teams are working in 56 countries, nearly half of them in remote and less-developed areas.

From helping fight Ebola to helping prevent and control yellow fever, plague, Zika and the COVID-19 pandemic, China has taken a series of concrete and active actions over the past decades to help other countries fight various diseases and improve local medical treatment and public health management, winning it extensive praise from the international community.

In the era of globalization, no country can remain immune from global health issues. Therefore, any global healthcare issue is not only a public health issue, but also a public security issue that may affect a specific country, region or even the whole world. With the pandemic still ongoing, the North-South development gap continuing to widen, and limited medical resources and fragile public healthcare systems still plaguing some countries and regions, the need for the international community to work hand-in-hand and provide necessary assistance to countries in need can never be overemphasized.

The right to life and health is the common pursuit of human values, and also the most basic and important human right that all should enjoy beyond national boundaries and races. The medical aid provided by China to other countries has contributed immensely to global public health security. China will continue to provide material, technical and human resource supports to countries and regions in need to help them build their medical treatment and disease prevention systems and contribute more to the international healthcare cause.