Workers unload the Chinese government-donated anti-epidemic material supplies from a Chinese cargo plane at Wattay International Airport in Vientiane, Laos, May 10, 2021. (Xinhua/Zhang Jianhua)

VIENTIANE, May 11 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese government-donated anti-COVID-19 material supplies have arrived at Wattay International Airport in Lao capital Vientiane with a handover ceremony held upon their arrival.

Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) central committee politburo member, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the National Taskforce Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control Kikeo Khaykhamphithoune and Chinese Ambassador to Laos Jiang Zaidong attended the handover ceremony on Monday for the emergency assistance to fight the recent COVID-19 outbreak in Laos.

Kikeo said when receiving the supplies at the airport that after the outbreak of the new wave of the epidemic in Laos, the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government urgently dispatched a team of medical experts to Laos and provided urgently needed materials to assist the country in the prevention and control of the epidemic, which fully embodies the spirit of a community with a shared future between Laos and China.

Workers unload the Chinese government-donated anti-epidemic material supplies from a Chinese cargo plane at Wattay International Airport in Vientiane, Laos, May 10, 2021. (Xinhua/Zhang Jianhua)

On behalf of the Lao party, the government and the people, Kikeo sincerely thanked the Communist Party of China, the Chinese government and the fraternal Chinese people for their consistent valuable assistance. He believed that the donation will provide Laos with strong support to win the battle against the virus.

The Chinese government's emergency assistance to Laos includes ventilators, automatic nucleic acid extractors, medical masks, N95 masks, mobile hospital beds, automatic autoclaves, nucleic acid extraction or purification reagents, and nucleic acid detection kits, etc.

Laos has been witnessing a surge of COVID-19 infections recently. The country confirmed 35 new cases  of COVID-19 on Tuesday, bringing the total number of the cases to 1,362.

Laos confirmed its first two COVID-19 cases on March 24 last year.