With the COVID-19 pandemic raging across the world, fighting against the disease has become a common task, to which China has attached great importance through cooperation and information exchange with other countries.

China isolated and identified the virus strain soon after the outbreak was detected in the country. It shared the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus on January 12. The World Health Organization (WHO) said the move was "of great importance for other countries to use in developing specific diagnostic kits."

Two data-sharing platforms – 2019 Novel Coronavirus Resource by China National Center for Bioinformation and a global coronavirus data sharing and analysis system by the National Microbiology Data Center – have been launched to provide global users with relevant data and knowledge about the virus.

As of April 23, six candidate vaccines have entered clinical evaluation with 77 others in preclinical phases, according to the WHO.

"This unprecedented speed is thanks in large part to early Chinese efforts to sequence the genetic material of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19," wrote The Guardian.

The country has also made its five-approach vaccine development open to the world for better international cooperation.

Meanwhile, Chinese scientists have published research and documents in international academic journals like The Lancet  for global review and exchanges. Telemedicine between Chinese experts and frontline doctors and their peers from over 100 countries and regions has been set up to share the latest on COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment.

Technical services to hard-hit areas

"In terms of foreign aid, we have provided scientific products, researchers, and Chinese schemes and experience to the severely-affected areas," Xu Nanping, vice minister of Science and Technology, said at a press conference.

China has provided medical masks, protective clothing and testing kits to more than 140 countries and international organizations, and dispatched medical expert teams to over 10 countries.

The country's self-developed intelligent pneumonia screening and surveillance system has helped Italian doctors evaluate CT scans and improved COVID-19 diagnostic speed; an AI-based temperature detection system has helped automatically check body temperature in Argentina, reducing the risk of human-to-human transmission; Unmanned aerial vehicles have been used in Italy and France for transportation and temperature measurement, which improved the efficiency of epidemic prevention and control.

CGTN and Tencent Medipedia are also joining hands to launch an AI system based on guidance from the WHO, China's National Health Commission, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and health authorities in other countries, to help people around the world know more about the disease.

Via a conversation, the AI system will study information provided by users such as gender, age, disease symptoms, and contact or travel history to epidemic areas, and accordingly provide them with guidelines, as well as personalized suggestions such as home quarantine observation or medical treatment options.

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It also gathers advice from experts about pressing questions, like daily protective measures, home quarantine and disinfection measures, self-management tips for close contacts, providing a channel for scientific countermeasures and relieving anxiety.