The ASEAN Plus Three Health Ministers’ Special Meeting on Ebola Preparedness and Response was held in Bangkok, Thailand, on December 15. Nearly 100 people attended the meeting, including health ministers from the ASEAN, China, Japan and Korea; secretary-general of the ASEAN secretariat; and heads from the WHO’s headquarters, Southeast Asia region and West Pacific region. Cui Li, vice-minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), led a delegation to attend the meeting.

Thailand’s premier attended the opening ceremony and delivered a speech. Dr Margaret Chan, director-general of the WHO; Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Ebola response mission; and Abu Bakarr Fofanah, health minister of Sierra Leone, delivered speeches through video, appealing the international community to pay attention to the Ebola epidemic and provide supplies and aid to West African countries. They also praised the cooperation of China, Japan, Korea and the ASEAN in fighting Ebola.

Cui Li said that since the Ebola epidemic broke out in West African countries this March, China, as a developing country, has tried its best to aid the Ebola-affected countries. The Chinese government has provided 750 million yuan ($120 million) in total in emergent aid to West African Ebola-affected areas and relevant international and regional organizations, including donating $2 million to the African Union and the WHO; donating $6 million to the UN’s Ebola response multilateral trust fund; and dispatching more than 600 medical staff and public health experts to West Africa for staff training, laboratory testing, suspected cases observation and treatment. In the next months, Chinese medical staff and public health experts in West Africa will reach up to 1,000 people.