China will continue to manage COVID-19 with measures against Class-B infectious diseases after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the COVID-19 pandemic no longer constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, Mi Feng, the spokesperson for the National Health Commission (NHC), said at a press conference on Monday.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO, made the announcement last Friday, adding that the WHO's decision does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat and "it is time for countries to transition from emergency mode to managing COVID-19 alongside other infectious diseases."

Mi added that the virus still continues to mutate and sporadic and localized infections still exist in China, so all localities and departments should continue to manage COVID-19 with measures against Class-B infectious diseases to ensure people's health and facilitate their work and lives.

China's three years of active global cooperation

The press conference also highlighted China's strong commitment to international collaboration in combating the pandemic over the past three years. 

"China has always taken on its responsibilities and engaged in comprehensive cooperation with the international community," said Liang Wannian, head of the NHC's COVID-19 response expert panel.

The various aspects of international cooperation includes sharing information and exchanging anti-pandemic experiences, providing medical supplies to numerous countries, offering large-scale vaccination supplies to developing countries, and dispatching medical expert teams abroad.

China has provided a large number of anti-pandemic materials such as protective suits, masks and ventilators to 153 countries and 15 international organizations. 

Moreover, the country has collaborated with over 180 countries and regions, as well as more than 10 international organizations, in organizing over 300 technical exchanges meetings on the prevention, control, and medical treatment of COVID-19. It has also dispatched 37 medical expert teams to 34 countries to provide crucial support.

To date, China has supplied over 2.2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to more than 120 countries and international organizations, according to Liang.

China was also the first to advocate for the establishment of a united global community focused on health and well-being, Liang noted. He added that China aims to foster a cooperative environment that can effectively address present and future health challenges by emphasizing the importance of collaboration, information sharing, and collective action.

XBB dominates COVID-19 variants in China

The Omicron offshoots XBB series have become the dominant COVID-19 variants in China, Chen Cao, research fellow of the National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said during the press conference.

Chen said that the composition of the coronavirus strains prevalent in the country has been increasingly subject to international impact as the country relaxes its travel restrictions.

Monitoring data show that in late April, the XBB variants accounted for 97.5 percent of imported cases, in line with their proportion globally, he said. 

"For the domestic cases, the share of XBB variants has increased remarkably since February, up from 0.2 percent in mid-February to 74.4 percent in late April. Meanwhile, sub-variants BA.5.2, BF.7, BA.2 and their offshoots added up to account for around 25 percent. Currently, the dominant strains of novel coronavirus in China have become the XBB series," Chen said. 

The XBB subvariants of Omicron, with stronger transmission ability and immune evasion, are currently the dominant variants globe-wide. But surveillance data indicate that the prevalent variants including the XBB do not obviously vary in pathogenicity from the early Omicron, according to Chen.