Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Senegalese Foreign Minister Amadou Ba held a phone conversation on Saturday on the fight against the epidemic of novel coronavirus pneumonia (NCP).

During the call, Ba said that Senegalese President Macky Sall highly appreciates China’s effective measures to combat the epidemic and believes that the Chinese people will overcome the difficulties.

Noting that Senegal received strong support from China during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, Ba said that at this difficult time, President Sall as well as the Senegalese government and people are ready to stand firmly with China and believe that the Chinese people are resilient enough to face the pressure and overcome the epidemic at an early date.

Briefing Ba on the latest progress in the fight against the epidemic, Wang stressed that the Chinese people are united and will spare no effort to secure an early victory against the epidemic, adding that after the victory, China will become stronger and its development more sustainable.

China will guarantee the health and safety of Senegalese nationals in China and address their reasonable concerns, Wang added.

Noting that China and Senegal are comprehensive strategic cooperative partners, Wang said that the two countries have always stood together in times of need.

In his review of how Chinese personnel feared no risks and took the lead in helping combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Wang noted that when Western countries withdrew their staff one after another, Chinese diplomats and medical experts chose to stay.

At this critical moment of combating the NCP epidemic, China has gained strong support from African countries, including Senegal, which China will always remember, Wang said.

Expressing the belief that the upcoming African Union Heads of State and Government Summit will also form a consensus on supporting China, Wang called on China and Senegal, co-chairs of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), to take the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the FOCAC as an opportunity to jointly implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state and the outcome of the FOCAC Beijing Summit, and push forward China-Africa cooperation to a new level.