UN pitches in with all its might to fight outbreak

The UN system in China is working hard to step up and provide both short-and longer-term support to Chinese government and its people amid the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, striking a balance between an emergent response and recovery, said the head of the office.

Since mid-January, the UN family has been mobilized to help with procuring resources and funding in cooperation with the National Health Commission and the Ministry of Commerce, said Nicholas Rosellini, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in China, in an exclusive interview with China Daily.

The cooperation has ensured each batch of supplies meets the necessary standards and adheres to urgent needs, he added.

The United Nations Children's Fund was the first agency to mobilize supplies and has so far sent three shipments to China, including six metric tons of masks and protective suits, according to the agency. The first batch arrived in Shanghai from Copenhagen, Denmark, on Jan 29 for shipment to Wuhan, in Hubei province.

The first shipment of supplies from the United Nations Development Programme was handed over to the Ministry of Commerce for distribution on Feb 12 at the UN Compound in Beijing.

The batch included 18 infusion pumps and 25 patient monitoring systems as well as other medical equipment. All supplies have been picked up by hospitals in Beijingthe Beijing You'an Hospital and Xiaotangshan Hospital－according to the UNDP.

More needed shipments of personal protective equipment are on the way, with 10,000 protective medical suits procured from a manufacturer in Turkey.

Apart helping with the immediate health needs, Rosellini said the UN system is also ready to support China to deal with the broader socio-economic and human development impact, both now and in the long term.

"Poorer communities without the capacity or resources to respond to the outbreak may be disproportionately affected," said the head officer. "So, there's impact on the health system for people not necessarily suffering from the coronavirus, but from other illnesses which may not be prioritized because of the attention on the coronavirus."

And there's also the impact on the education system with children not being able to go to school and the broader economic impact as well, he added.

"Each UN agency stands firmly with the World Health Organization, bringing their own development expertise (to help the disease-stricken country)."

So, UNDP has launched a campaign on social media, encouraging people to translate the key health messages into regional dialects and ethnic languages and make videos. The recordings aim to ensure that the ethnic minority groups, especially those who do not speak Mandarin, have full access to the information they need.

Also, with the support of the Chinese National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, or UNAIDS, has launched a nationwide survey to ensure that all those living with HIV are receiving the help they need.

Separately, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization has activated an incident coordination group to assess the epidemic, and is working to ensure the readiness of all national veterinary laboratories to rapidly detect the new virus in animals and animal products destined for human consumption.

Meanwhile, UNICEF has created an online information portal for parents to help them keep their children safe.

Rosellini also said that the UN system in China must continue work on its normal programs and initiatives to help China eliminate extreme poverty for 16.1 million people across the nation, which is also the country's development goal of 2020.