Invited by the Government of Kazakhstan, the Chinese anti-epidemic expert team set out from Urumqi to Kazakhstan on April 9, to help with the epidemic containment.

The team is of organized by the National Health Commission, and selected from Xinjiang. The team is made up of 10 members from Xinjiang People’s Hospital, the First Hospital Affiliated to Xinjiang Medical University, Xinjiang TCM Hospital, Yili Friendship Hospital, Yili Disease Control and Prevention Center. Their fields are respiratory disease, ICU, infectious disease, TCM, nursing and public health. They will share the experience with the local medical institutions and exerts, introduce China’s experience in the epidemic containment, give guidance and advice on case detection, community health management and lab jobs, while taking the local quarantine measures as well as their diagnosis and treatment protocols in consideration.

Lu Xiaobo, director of infectious disease center, the First Hospital Affiliated to Xinjiang Medical University, said, the virus respects borders, while the anti-epidemic effort also go beyond borders. In the call of the Chinese Government, we go to Kazakhstan to share our anti-epidemic experience. It is a mission of great responsibilities and great honor. We will accomplish it with success.   

Lu Chen, deputy head of the team, member of Xinjiang People’s Hospital CPC Committee and vice president of the hospital, said, “as agreed in diplomatic negotiations, the experts are selected in the fields of ICU, respiratory disease, infectious disease and nursing, etc. They have done outstanding contributions to the COVID-19 treatment in Xinjiang. Of course, we have done some emergency response drill and training, because we have to ensure no infection and absolute safety for them, required by the relevant government department. Therefore, we made examinations and tests to each member, each expert, no matter what the position is, head of team or interpreter. Each of the team passed the examinations and tests with good scores. We also developed the training materials and plans of our future guidance, advice and training, which were agreed upon in the bilateral negotiations. We hope that the face-to-face communication will make China’s experience used in the other countries with better effect. We also hope that the cooperation among the experts of the two countries will also improve the friendship between China and Kazakhstan.”

The team brought with them a donation of medical supplies from Xinjiang, including 49,600 disposable medical masks, 4,800 medical N95 masks, 2,000 medical protective gowns, 2 non-invasive ventilators as well as drugs.