COVID-19: Chinese experts depart for Zimbabwe

ANKARA (AA) – China has sent 12 medical experts to Zimbabwe to help tackle the coronavirus pandemic, Zimbabwean local media reported Monday.

The medical experts who have left Changsha, the provincial capital of Hunan province, for Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, will also bring medical supplies including ventilators, face masks and PPEs, according to Pindola News website.

The medical equipment will be provided as a donation by the Chinese provincial government to Harare, the report said.

Late last month, China's embassy in Zimbabwe pledged to help Zimbabwe cope with the outbreak.

COVID-19 cases in the landlocked southern African country have risen to 36, along with four virus-linked deaths and nine recoveries, according to figures by John Hopkins University's Coronavirus Resource Centre.

Earlier this month, President Emmerson Mnangagwa extended the country's lockdown, which began March 30, by two weeks to contain the virus.

In a televised nationwide address, Mnangagwa said more people in Zimbabwe were getting infected, and he feared the situation could get out of control.

More than 4.12 million cases have been reported in 187 countries and regions since the virus emerged in China last December.

A significant number of patients -- more than 1.42 million -- have recovered, but the disease has also claimed over 283,000 lives so far.