Editor's note: Ssemanda Allawi is a PhD. candidate specializing in international relations and diplomacy, and the author of "Global Governance and Norm Contestation: How BRICS is Reshaping World Order." The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Like any other unexpected outbreak, coronavirus caused fear, anxiety and panic among people in Chinese city of Wuhan, Hubei Province in general and entire world. The good news is that China's response on how to combat and stop the spread of the coronavirus has been undoubtedly swift, and amazing as World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted: "I will praise China again and again because its actions actually helped in reducing the spread of the novel coronavirus to other countries."

While there is need for countries to act swiftly in ensuring the coronavirus does not spread more, there is need to understand that infectious outbreaks and their agents never mind about our political ideologies or even borders – that we can all at one time be victims of such outbreak and hence, the need for combined efforts despite our different political  ideologies, after all, what threatens our well-being is common.

Therefore, a threat to people's well-being like coronavirus which can spread and affect many people in a short time should encourage us to work together in such times and find solutions other than closing our borders and thinking of evacuating our citizens fast like in a spirit of every man for himself and God for us all. Unilateral actions like travel restrictions against Chinese citizens by some countries even after WHO advised against such should be avoided since such measures can affect economies, information sharing and samples of microbes or viruses which is a key step in finding how to counter a new outbreak.

Unless there is good cooperation and a gesture of good will to working together in such times, we risk a repeat of 2007 when Indonesia stopped sharing samples with foreign researchers during the outbreak of H5N1 bird flu, fearing sharing their samples would be used to develop vaccines which would in-turn be very expensive for them.

Travel restrictions and blame game do not only violate WHO laws but also affect efforts to quickly fight spreading of such virus on top of economic consequences as a result of such travel restrictions.

Also, media especially the Western media reporting on outbreaks particularly coronavirus has focused more on causing fear other than mobilizing and urging international community to stand as one and ensure greater success is achieved in containing the virus or even highlighting more the positive sides already realized in the efforts to contain the coronavirus.

For example, while some Western media outlets are covered with screaming headlines of coronavirus in China whose death toll is about 304 with more than 14,411 infections as of February 2, few media outlets have made headlines about Center for Diseases Control and Prevention's report on January 31 that currently, 10,000 people have died and 180,000 people have been hospitalized because of flu in the U.S.

Therefore, as people, no matter our political ideologies or even geographical borders, we face the same challenge when it comes to virus-related illnesses and other pandemics. Unless different governments and organizations work hand in hand, we risk seeing outbreaks that would otherwise be contained becoming epidemics and later pandemics. Therefore, it is in the interest of the world to see the coronavirus getting quickly contained to avoid further human and possible economic losses. And anything that hurts China, the second largest economy in the international community, like the coronavirus, hurts the world.

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