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Africa News of Sunday, 22 March 2020

Source: www.mynigeria.com

Coronavirus: Ethiopia receives over 6 million medical supplies from Alibaba foundation

Jack Ma and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali Jack Ma and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali

Ethiopian Government has received over 6 million medical supplies from the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

On the 16th of March, the Chinese businessman and founder of the Alibaba Group, Jack Ma, promised to support Africa with about medical supplies as the world battle the pandemic.

"We cannot ignore the potential risk to Africa and assume this continent of 1.3 billion people will blissfully escape the crisis,” he said, adding, “we can take precautions now and get prepared ahead of time, as Africa can benefit from the experience and lessons from other countries that were earlier hit hard by the virus," Jack Ma said on his Twitter account.

According to Alizila, the supplies would include 100,000 medical masks, 20,000 test kits and 1,000 protective suits to each of the 54 nations on the African continent.



Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali if Ethiopia will take the lead in overseeing their distribution to other African countries.

The foundations also announced plans to provide online training materials to help medical institutions in Africa cope with coronavirus cases.

The gesture, according to Jack Ma, will be extended beyond Africa as medical supplies will be donated to other countries hardest hit by the virus, including Japan, South Korea, the U.S. and countries across Europe and Asia.

As of today, the global record of the coronavirus has hit more than 316,000 infections and over 13,000 deaths, according to Worldometer.