Wang Hesheng, vice-minister of China's National Health Commission (NHC), meets with Irit Ben-Abba Vitale, Israeli ambassador to China, on Sept 15 to promote bilateral public health collaboration. [Photo/nhc.gov.cn]

Wang Hesheng, vice-minister of China's National Health Commission (NHC) and director of the National Administration of Disease Prevention and Control, met with a delegation led by Israeli Ambassador to China Irit Ben-Abba Vitale on Sept 15 to exchange views on their experience in combating the COVID-19 pandemic and future cooperation between the two countries.

Wang said that China-Israel public health collaboration has a sound foundation. Recent years have seen fruitful results in close bilateral cooperation under the mechanism of the China-Israel Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the two countries have held several conferences via video link for experts to exchange views on relevant technical issues.

He also briefed the Israeli participants on China's latest progress in COVID-19 control and vaccination, and said that China is willing to deepen public health cooperation and exchanges with Israel in this area and other fields so as to make contributions to building a global community of health for all.

Irit Ben-Abba Vitale spoke highly of China-Israel relations and bilateral health cooperation, and said Israel hopes to further public health cooperation with China under the mechanism of the China-Israel Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation to further benefit the health and well-being of the people of both countries.