Interview: Global response needed to defeat COVID-19, says expert

Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-26 17:49:35|Editor: huaxia

by Xinhua writer Liang Xizhi, Larry Neild

LONDON, March 26 (Xinhua) -- A global epidemic needs a global response on the political as well as the epidemiological fronts, an expert told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Anthony Glees, a professor emeritus at Britain's University of Buckingham and expert on international politics, said COVID-19 can only be managed and defeated by pooling global expertise, calling the pandemic a global war.

"It seems hard to doubt that China has done something from which the world must learn," he said, adding that the Chinese government has impressed the global community with its firm measures to contain the outbreak and expeditious hospital building. He said life in China is beginning to return to normal.

He stressed that equally impressive is the readiness of Chinese scientists and doctors to share their own clinical experience, equipment and scientific data with the World Health Organization (WHO), which has played a positive role in the outbreak, and globally.

The world needs China to extend the hand of cooperation in fighting COVID-19, he said.

The professor expects massive new steps to exchange scientific knowledge for the good of humanity, steps that should receive massive new funding from the Group of 20 (G20).

A virtual summit of the Group of 20 (G20) leaders on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic is set to be held in Beijing Thursday.

Glees believes that science and technology are the keys to tackling the threat of further pandemics, global warming and also with the devastating economic consequences of the COVID-19 onslaught.

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