Gratitude to the Guangdong Team for Using Artemisinin to Eliminate the Threat of Malaria

    "Both of our peoples eat cassava, Chinese eat roots, Comorian people eat leaves, and this is a business opportunity! Chinese companies can process the leaves of cassava and export them to the Comores.”--- Mahmoud M. Aboud, Ambassador of the Union of the Comores.

     “We are grateful to Guangdong anti-malaria teams for their great contribution to the Comores.” Seeing the reporter, Mahmoud M. Aboud, Ambassador of the Union of the Comores to China, said immediately that he hoped to take this opportunity to express his great gratitude to the team of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine and other Guangdong teams for using artemisinin to rapidly eliminate malaria in Comores.

    This year marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Comores. Referring to the prospect of cooperation between China and Comores, Aboud stressed that the complementarities between China and the Comores are very strong, and Comores hope to have in-depth cooperation with China to promote a win-win situation.

    Nanfang Daily: How do you position Comores in China's initiatives of building the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road”? How would your country plan to participate? What are your advises on this matter?

    Aboud: Comores welcomes China's 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative and is willing to deepen people-to-people exchanges with China on the basis of economic and trade cooperation in order to promote a win-win situation. Comores hopes to cooperate with China in infrastructure construction, marine economy and other areas.

    As the ancient Chinese saying goes that it is better to teach people to fish than giving them fishes. Comores is a developing agricultural and island country. We hope to learn from the Chinese tourism industry. We hope that Chinese companies can develop tourism resources, and build tourism infrastructure in Comores so as to enhance the competitiveness of our tourism, and attract more foreign tourists, especially Chinese tourists. We also hope to cooperate with China in the area of high technologies in order to transform and upgrade our national economy.

    Nanfang Daily: At present, what are the main areas of cooperation between Comores and China?

    Aboud: China and Comores are good brothers. There is a very successful project between us. The anti-malaria medical team of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine has helped the Comores with rapid control of the malaria epidemic.

    Many years ago, malaria was a haunting nightmare for Comores. Thanks to the hard work of our Chinese brothers, the malaria nightmare has been basically eliminated. We have achieved zero deaths from malaria, the number of cases has decreased by 98%, and the malaria infection rate has been greatly reduced.

    Nanfang Daily: Under the Belt and Road Initiative, how can we connect more effectively in the areas of economy and culture?

    Aboud: China and Comores are highly complementary, and there is huge room for cooperation. Comores, known as the country of spices, is rich in spices and essential oil. We can see that health therapy centers all over China, so these special products can be imported into China in large quantities. Now, many Comores students are studying IT, medicine, and agriculture in China. We hope that they can bring China's advanced technologies back to benefit our people.

    Nanfang Daily reporter: Xin Junqing