HONG KONG, March 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- March 30, 4:30pm Beijing time (9:30am, Lisbon time, on March 30, 2020) - A chartered flight carrying over one million pieces of medical supplies weighing over 120,000 tons from Shanghai landed at Lisbon Airport. This batch of supplies includes 50,000 medical supplies and 20,000 nucleic acid detection kits donated by Shanghai Fosun Foundation and Fosun's member companies in Portugal, as well as one million KN95 masks purchased by Fosun member company, Luz Saúde.
Among the 50,000 pieces of medical supplies donated by Fosun to Portuguese Central Government, there are 38,000 KN95 masks, 5,000 masks that are cleared for use in the "red zone" of hospitals, 3,000 plastic-strip protective suits that are permissible in the "red zone", 4,000 pieces of waterproof protective clothing, and 20,000 Fosun's self-developed novel coronavirus nucleic acid detection kits that comply with the EU standards. The detection kit can help the frontline to detect novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in a safe, swift and efficient manner. This batch of supplies is donated by Fosun and its member companies in Portugal, including Fidelidade, Luz Saúde, and Millennium BCP.
It is worth mentioning that the nucleic acid detection kit donated to the Portuguese Central Government has received emergency approval from China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) and the European Union CE certification, and has obtained the medical device registration certificate. This kit can realize the qualitative detection of the three genetic targets of ORF1ab, N, and E of the novel coronavirus by using a fast nucleic acid extraction instrument and extraction reagents. It can produce the results in 90 minutes, with the advantage of fully automatic operation, can greatly reduce the manual operation time of medical professionals, and improve the diagnosis efficiency. Currently, the nucleic acid detection kits are gradually exported to overseas countries including South Korea, Portugal, Hungary, Germany and Indonesia through donations or sales channels.
Eurico Brilhante Dias, Secretary of State for Internationalization and Jamila Madeira, Deputy Minister for Health of the Portuguese Government accepted the donation of the materials as the representatives at the scene, and Jorge Magalhães Correia, Fosun's global partner, Chairman of Fidelidade, Isabel Vaz, CEO of Luz Saúde, Miguel Maya, CEO of Millennium BCP, and Xu Lingjiang, Fosun's Assistant President and Executive Director of the Overseas Healthcare Service Group, are present as the representatives of the donors.
Jamila Madeira, Deputy Minister for Health of the Portuguese Government stated that, "Together with its portfolio companies in Portugal, Fosun's help is very important not only from the perspective of donations to the government, but also of the further shipment of medical goods to Portugal."
Jorge Magalhães Correia, CEO and President of Fidelidade, Fosun's global partner said, "As a core member company of Fosun in Portugal, we maintain close communication and collaboration with the government and the health department. We are happy to work with Fosun to fight the epidemic in Portugal, and we hope that these supplies will help the medical staff in the frontline."
An adapted Chinese ancient poem was printed the packaging box of medical supplies delivered to Portugal, "A small beautiful sea country, to which we give 10,000 miles of spring." The first half of this poetic couplet came from the poem entitled "Farewell" written by Chen Tao, a poet from the Tang Dynasty, in which the original couplet was: "A small beautiful sea country, where 10,000 strings of ice are hanging." The adapted poetic couplet is used to symbolize the care that China and Portugal have for each other in spite of the long distance between them. The second half of the couplet came from a poem entitled "An Ode to the Plum Blossom by Lu Kai." Lu Kai was a poet living in the Southern Dynasty and once sent a twig of plum blossoms together with a poem to his friend because he missed his friend dearly, including this couplet: "There is nothing in southern China, and I can only send you a twig of spring." The adapted poem changed "I can only send you a twig of spring" to "to which we give 10,000 miles of spring" in order to express the deep blessing for the people of Portugal. Corresponding to the Chinese poem, there is also a famous poetic line in Portuguese: "Tudo vale a pena. Se a alma não é pequena," written by Fernando Pessoa, a Portuguese author, which means "If the soul is not small, everything is worth it."
In addition to this batch of medical supplies, Fosun joined hands with Shanghai Municipal Government's Foreign Affairs Office, Haitong Securities, Haitong Bank and Portuguese company, Gestifute, to donate another batch of supplies to the city of Porto, a friendly city of Shanghai, This batch of supplies, a total of 58,400 pieces of medical protective materials, have also taken a flight to Portugal and will donate to the local municipal government of Porto.
Working together to overcome the difficulties and fight the epidemic together
Fosun and Portugal have a long history of friendship. As a representative of Chinese private enterprises investing in Portugal, Fosun has acquired Fidelidade, Portugal's largest comprehensive insurance company, in 2014 and has successively extended its business to local banking, medical and other industries. Millennium BCP, the largest listed bank, and Luz Saúde, the largest private medical group, in Portugal are both member companies of Fosun. Fosun's investment in Portugal has brought economic vitality to the region and has become a strong promoter of Portugal's economic recovery, achieving mutually beneficial results for local businesses and communities.
Shortly after the global epidemic outbreak, Guo Guangchang communicated with Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa. Guo Guangchang expressed his concern about the outbreak in Portugal and expressed his intention to make donation to Portugal. The Portuguese Prime Minister thanked Guo Guangchang and Fosun Foundation for their support to the global fight against the epidemic and support to the Portuguese nation to fight the epidemic. Protection medical supplies and novel coronavirus nucleic acid detection kits are very important to a country especially during this critical period. He said "This is a great support to the Portuguese government and society, and also reflects the beautiful friendship and solidarity between the two countries in critical period."
Guo Guangchang, Chairman of Fosun International, said, "As a global company, we hope that we can do our part to help the world win the fight against the novel coronavirus as soon as possible. Fosun has developed its footprint in Portugal for many years, and Portugal has also become my second hometown. At this time of the epidemic, Fosun has joined the local member companies to maintain close communication with the Portuguese central government to provide a full support for the local fight against the epidemic. I believe that the Portuguese people, with their hardworking and courageous spirit, will definitely overcome the difficulties and defeat the virus."
On January 26, at the beginning of China's fight against the epidemic, 10,200 masks raised by Luz Saúde for China's fight against the epidemic arrived in Shanghai as the first batch of global medical supplies from Fosun's overseas platforms. One million KN95 masks arrived together with this batch of supplies were purchased by Luz Saúde through Fosun's global procurement network, which will be delivered to the local public hospitals in Portugal through the Portuguese Ministry of Health to provide strong protection for the local medical workers.
As of March 29, Portugal has added 792 confirmed cases and a total of 5,962 confirmed cases. Portugal also declared a state of emergency with effect from the 19th. António Sales, the Secretary of State for Health of the Ministry of Health of the Portuguese Government said that the Portuguese health system will increase the number of medical masks and FFP2 masks by 2 million each this week. At present, the national health system and private medical institutions have a daily testing capacity of 2,500 and 1,500 cases respectively, and the testing capacity will continue to increase in the future.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, Fosun has acted first and donated supplies to the frontline for the epidemic prevention and control through the global procurement network covering 23 countries. As a global enterprise rooted in China, Fosun has always paid attention to the further upgrade of the global epidemic prevention and control. On March 1, Fosun officially started the second phase of its operations against the coronavirus by urgently deploying global resources to support the global fight against the epidemic. As of March 23, Fosun has deployed and donated a total of 11 batches of medical protection supplies to overseas key countries with rapid epidemic outbreak, such as Italy, Japan, South Korea, India, the UK and France.
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