by Zhang Yuliang, Tafara Mugwara
HARARE, May 21 (Xinhua) -- The visiting team of Chinese medical experts have toured the country's three provinces to share their experience with local medical staff who stand at the frontline to fight COVID-19 in the southern African country.
The 12-member team, which arrived in Zimbabwe last Monday, comes from southern China's Hunan Province.
The team is made up of experts from infectious diseases and respiratory illnesses, intensive medicine, infection control, traditional Chinese medicine as well as public health and nursing.
In this week, they visited Mashonaland East, Mashonaland Central and Mashonaland West provinces, covering more than 1,000 km.
In Marondera Provincial Hospital, the main provincial hospital in Mashonaland East, the Chinese experts gave a lecture to the doctors and nurses, sharing their experience with their Zimbabwean counterparts to help them fight against the pandemic.
Zhu Yimin, the leader of the Chinese team, said every country had the problem of inward transmissions and there was need to scale up health screening at ports of entry, closely monitor inbound travelers and compulsorily quarantine them.
"The issue of transmissions that are inbound is affecting every country and there is need to ensure that people are thoroughly screened at ports of entry as well as quarantine them as per international standards," he said.
Chinhoyi Provincial Hospital and Mvurwi Hospital are the COVID-19 isolation and treatment hospital in Mashonaland West and East provinces. During the visit, the Chinese medical experts toured the wards and isolation center of the two hospitals and provided recommendations on hospital infection control, laboratory testing among other issues.
The team also donated medical supplies to the hospitals they visited including Marondera Provincial Hospital, Chinhoyi Provincial Hospital and Mvurwi Hospital.
Provincial officials and medical staff highly praised the Chinese experts for helping Zimbabwe in its fight against COVID-19, saying they believed that it has greatly helped the provinces to fight the epidemic.
Mary Mliswa, Minister of State for Provincial Affairs of Mashonaland West, expressed sincere gratitude to the Chinese medical experts for unreservedly sharing the experience with their Zimbabwean counterparts.
Appollonia Munzverengwi, Mashonaland East's Minister of State for Provincial Affairs, hailed cordial China-Zimbabwe ties that date back to Zimbabwe's liberation struggle, adding that Zimbabwe had a lot to learn from China which managed to contain a huge outbreak of COVID-19.
"As a province and as a country, we can get an insight and learn much from the Chinese who have always been our all-weather friends," she said. Enditem
