The first batch of Chinese mobile laboratory testing team members giving aid in Sierra Leone returned to Beijing on November 16 after they finished their task in the Ebola-affected country. Cui Li, vice-minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), and Lv Jiyun, vice-minister of the Health Department of General Logistics, welcomed medical team members accompanied by relevant people from the NHFPC’s General Office, Health Emergency Response Office, Department of Communications and Department of International Cooperation.

Entrusted by Minister Li Bin, Cui Li represented the NHFPC and greeted the medical members. She also praised their sense of responsibility in the difficult and dangerous situation.

Cui said that since Ebola broke out in West Africa, the Chinese government has paid great attention to Ebola-affected areas and organized the biggest foreign aid campaign since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. The first batch of Chinese mobile laboratory testing teams made its contribution in fighting Ebola in West Africa, which not only embodies the friendship between China and Africa but also won praise from recipient countries and the international community.

The medical members are from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and 302 Military Hospital of China. They spent five days establishing the mobile laboratory testing team and seven days to carry out operations of the mobile laboratory and observation center. In total they tested 1,635 blood samples, 847 of them were positive, and treated 274 observed cases. During their aid in West Africa, the testing reagent and mobile P3 laboratory independently developed by China were applied in a foreign country for the first time. For two months, the testing team strictly carried out the regulations of laboratory safety management and hospital infection control and management, ensuring nobody was infected by Ebola.