China announced on Aug 7 that it would provide humanitarian aid worth 30 million yuan ($4.86 million) to the four Ebola-hit countries in West Africa to help contain the epidemic, which the World Health Organization says has become an international public health emergency.

Although the chances of the deadly virus entering China remain slim, the authorities cannot afford to let their guards down because it could still sneak into the country given the extensive exchanges between China and Africa and the latent period of 2 to 20 days before its symptoms become apparent. In theory, a newly infected person may not show any symptoms while entering China and could spread the virus to others by the time he/she is identified as a victim of the disease.

There is need, therefore, for the Chinese government to establish a preemptive response mechanism by, for instance, helping the Ebola-hit countries to contain the virus. This is exactly what the Chinese government has done by offering aid to the four West African countries. The fact that the four affected countries (Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone) are among the poorest in the world has made their fight against the virus even more difficult.

A Chinese surgeon working in Guinea and known by his online name of "Jiudishu eg" wrote in his Weibo post that the country didn't have a mechanism to report the outbreak of an epidemic and its hospitals were poorly equipped and short staffed. "We don't have an infectious disease department here and even a surgery towel is repeatedly used because of shortage of supplies," read one of his posts.

The threat is real because, as WHO Director-General Margaret Chan has said, the demand for medicines, medical equipment and facilities, and medics are far beyond the four countries' capacity to meet. Chan warned that without effective intervention and cooperation at the national and international levels, the worst Ebola outbreak could spread to other places and prove catastrophic.

There is growing concern in China that an athlete or official from any of the four Ebola-hit countries could carry the virus in dormant state when he or she travels to China to take part in the Youth Olympic Games that opens in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, on Aug 16. This concern is not unfounded because the epidemic, the worst in the nearly 40-year history of the disease, has affected more than 1,603 people and killed at least 900 of them.