Health officials from China and the United States have pledged to work together to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, after a call on Monday night, Mar. 30, their first telephone exchange in two months.

China & U.S. to work together against Covid-19

According to China’s National Health Commission website, minister Ma Xiaowei assured the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar that China was willing to work with the US in fighting the pandemic.

The two exchanged views on the the bilateral progress, and spoke about further cooperation on managing the outbreak.

While reports of the situation in China has shown tremendous improvement in the past two weeks, the U.S. has been facing an exponential growth in the number of Covid-19 cases, crossing the 3,000 deaths mark on Mar. 31.

Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump had a telephone exchange.

Both leaders agreed to work together to contain the spread of the virus.

The call between Ma and Azar was the first move towards medical cooperation regarding the pandemic since the leaders' verbal exchange.

"In an open, transparent and responsible manner, China is working together with the international community including the US to combat the pandemic," Ma said, according to the statement.

U.S. health secretary spoke highly of China's efforts in combating outbreak

"Azar spoke highly of China's great efforts and achievements in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic and appreciated the close communication between China and the US on pandemic prevention," the statement wrote.

"China's experiences and creative measures in Covid-19 prevention and control are of great referential significance for the US coping with the current situation, said Azar, adding that the US is willing to strengthen exchanges with China, which will start a new chapter of cooperation between the two countries in the health sector."

PM Lee called for the U.S. & China to cooperate to fight pandemic in CNN interview

Speaking during an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria through a video call on Mar. 29, PM Lee Hsien Loong said that it would be “most constructive” for everyone to “look ahead and find the best way to move forward” and deal with the problem, in the current pandemic situation.

Calling for the two countries to move past the blame game, he said that swapping of insults and the blame game they engaged in are not going to help solve the problem sooner, which even under “the best of circumstances”, is going to be “a very difficult challenge for mankind”.

While he acknowledged that U.S.-China relations have already been “complicated” even before the viral outbreak, he said all countries, especially the U.S. and China, have to work together if they want to deal with the virus.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian previously accused the U.S. of being the true originator of the coronavirus.

U.S. President Donald Trump hit back by referring to Covid-19 as “the Chinese virus”.

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Top image via Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images