U.S's Fauci and China's Zhong Nanshan urge solidarity against COVID-19

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The sharing of information and collaboration across borders is essential in the fight against COVID-19, stated medical leaders from the U.S. and China, in a rare sign of solidarity.

The chief medical adviser to the U.S. president, Anthony Fauci, spoke alongside Chinese respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan, in a webinar organized by the University of Edinburgh.

The decision by the U.S. President Joe Biden to restore his country's funding of the World Health Organization (WHO), was praised by Zhong as "really good news."

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For Zhong, a WHO backed by the U.S. can play an even greater role in the redistribution of vaccines.

"About 10 countries have about 75 percent of the vaccines," warned the former president of the Chinese Medical Association, who urged further international support for the U.S. and China-backed COVAX scheme.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump had pulled funding for the WHO at the height of the COVID-19 outbreak last year, leading to international condemnation.

The WHO is the chief vehicle for coordinated international responses to health crises, and has been at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19.

Fauci, despite public criticism from his former boss Trump, maintained his position, now advising Biden as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Like Zhong, Fauci is an advocate of a global vaccination effort, as the virus can proliferate and potentially mutate in those countries with low vaccination rates, leading to another wave of the virus.

"To emphasize something that both of us said; if we do not completely suppress this, we will continue to be challenged by variants which have a way of coming back to bite us," said Fauci.

Cooperation between the U.S. and China against COVID-19, which looked unlikely in 2020 during the Trump administration, could hold the key to suppressing the virus. For Fauci, there is plenty of historical precedent to suggest this is possible.

"We have been successful in the past by global cooperation with smallpox, with polio, with measles. There's no reason in the world why we cannot do the same thing with COVID-19 by a combination of cooperative public health measures and the application of science."

(Video editor: Pedro Duarte)

(Cover image credit: Anthony Fauci: AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Nanshan Zhong: /CFP)