CRI听力:China Pledges Long-Term Support to Boost Africa's Emergency Health Readiness

China has been at the forefront of the fight against Ebola in West Africa since the start of the outbreak in 2013, and is now pledging to build a more resilient public health system on the continent to avert a similar crisis in the future.

China has already given 120 million US Dollars in emergency medical aid to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, the three worst affected countries.

Li Bin, Director of China's National health and family planning commission, says China will now focus its efforts on supporting post-Ebola recovery.

"China will support the World Health Organization to establish an emergency response plan for public health emergencies, including creating a global health emergency workforce and setting up an emergency fund. China's assistance will follow the principal of respecting Africa's needs, obtaining Africa's consent, and encouraging African participation in all health related cooperation."

Li Bin is attending the 68th World Health Assembly in Geneva and says Chinese medical teams on the ground will stay there for the long-run. They have already trained over 13,000 local medical personnel who will form the backbone of the public health system in the region. China has already deployed about 1,200 health care professionals to West Africa and will continue to send new contingents in the future.

Li Bin's comments come as 35 new cases of Ebola have been reported in Guinea and Sierra Leone this week, a stark reminder that the battle against the deadly virus is not yet over.

The World Health organization announced the creation of a 100 million US Dollar contingency fund earlier this week to ensure that it will not be "overwhelmed" by a major health crisis again.

Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO, says the international body was caught uNPRepared, underfunded and understaffed when the epidemic hit.

"And of course Ebola also teach the international community a lesson. A disease that is far away will come to your doorstep in a highly interconnected world, so once again the global health security agenda is important and in order to have a collective defense mechanism against disease threat we must implement the international health regulations core capacities."

The WHO has been criticized for a relatively slow response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The virus first began spreading in Guinea in December 2013 and has killed more than 11,000 people since then.

But it wasn't declared an international public health emergency until the following August.

The new changes that will be implemented before the end of this year aim to enhance WHO's capacity to deal with future global pandemics.

For CRI I'm Poornima Weerasekara.