ISLAMABAD - President Dr. Arif Alvi has appealed for national unity and urged the peo­ple to adopt preventive measures against coronavirus.

Sharing observations of his two-day official visit to China, the President, through a video message on Wednes­day, said his visit to China was to show solidarity with his Chinese counter­part and people of China for showing a great resilience and unity against the pandemic.

He said the people of Pakistan should also learn from the Chinese ex­perience and fight the disease through unity and resilience.

The President emphasized on cre­ating awareness about fighting the vi­rus. He said media and religious lead­ers should come forward to cope with this challenge.

He said that any person suffering from fever should immediately use mask, while other people should make it habit to wash their hands with soap every one hour, and cover their mouth during coughing.

President Dr Arif Alvi and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed in great detail the fight against the novel coro­navirus in Pakistan during his visit.

Pakistan and China had underlined that coronavirus was a common chal­lenge for humanity and called for all the countries around the world to “unite and cooperate” to overcome this challenge together.

President Alvi offered his valuable moral support to China and expressed appreciation of what it has contribut­ed to the global campaign to contain the ongoing pandemic.

He lauded China for their efforts to control the virus as new cases in the Hubei province have been in single digits for the past seven days, as com­pared to several thousand a day in early February.

He also appreciated China’s efforts to take care of the 1,300 Pakistani stu­dents stranded in China’s Wuhan city, the epicentre of the COVID-19.

During the visit, both the sides have signed a number of memorandums of understanding and handing-over cer­tificates of donated vaccine refrig­eration equipment, emergency hu­manitarian materials for epidemic response and emergency materials of epidemic control. Both the sides have also signed series of memorandums under the framework of the China-Pa­kistan Economic Corridor for further deepening their bilateral economic cooperation, which will in turn raise overall relations to a higher level.

Two joint working groups for agri­cultural and scientific and technologi­cal collaboration have been set up un­der the CPEC frameworks which will further boost the brotherly relations between Pakistan and China.