China's sharing on fighting COVID-19 helps Africa better prepare for pandemic, says expert

ADDIS ABABA -- Working closely with China in terms of sharing information on combating COVID-19 has enabled the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) to prepare better for the pandemic, a senior African official said Wednesday.

"China responded quite quickly (to the outbreak) and made available the full genomic sequence of the coronavirus," Ahmed Ogwell, deputy director of the Africa CDC, said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

The availability of COVID-19 genomic sequence helped the global community prepare in advance in the early stages of the outbreak, he said.

"So making that available was a very, very good step and in that way China did very well," he said.

In addition to the support from the Chinese government, Ogwell noted that Chinese enterprises and business leaders have also provided the African continent with products that were "key in ensuring that we responded very quickly at the beginning of the pandemic."

He also noted that the Africa CDC has been having discussions with Chinese developers of COVID-19 vaccine.

"We are looking forward to them (discussions) being fruitful so that we can be able to access the two vaccine candidates that are under advanced trial in China and elsewhere," he said.

Meanwhile, Ogwell also emphasized that the African continent and the global community must act together in face of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the African continent reached 3,107,979, according to the latest figures from the Africa CDC.

The death toll related to the pandemic has reached 74,444, and a total of 2,538,888 people infected with COVID-19 have recovered across the continent so far, the agency said.