A plane carrying medical supplies took off at 8:34 p.m., local time, Friday, and left Wuhan, a central Chinese city once hardest hit by COVID-19, for New York. 

The flight was operated by China Southern Airlines and loaded with nearly 20 tons of medical supplies on board.  It was the airlines' first passenger flight that was used for delivering cargo from the province. 

The airlines is also planning to operate more cargo flights from Wuhan to San Francisco, Rome, Paris, London and Frankfurt to send medical supplies produced by local companies to help with the coronavirus fight, said a source with the company's Hubei branch. 

The airlines decided to use passenger planes to deliver cargo on March 29 and sent 17.6 tons of cargo on the first converted flight from south China's Guangzhou to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on April 3. 

As of Thursday, China Southern Airlines has run 255 converted all-cargo flights, which sent 2,930 tons of cargo in total to 22 countries and regions, including Italy, France, Canada, Australia, Turkey, Kenya, Japan and the Republic of Korea.