Chinese team arrives in Sierra Leone to curb Ebola epidemic

A 59-member Chinese laboratory team, which comprises 30 doctors and 29 laboratory technicians with a mobile laboratory, arrived at the Lungi International Airport of Freetown, Sierra Leone on the early morning of Wednesday.

The team from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention will be based at the Sierra Leone-China Friendship Hospital at Jui, some 30 kilometers east of the capital city of Freetown, according to the source from Chinese Embassy in Sierra Leone.

Providing equipment as well as expertise, they will carry out lab screening and observation to help the West African Country of Sierra Leone to improve lab testing and contain the Ebola epidemic, said Zhao Yanbo, the Chinese Ambassador to Sierra Leone.

The Chinese government had sent 174 medical experts to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in spite of a high risk of infection from Ebola virus since the deadly disease broke out in the three West African countries.