Havana, May 6 (RHC)-- The Cuban health system received a lot of 6,000 N95 masks and 60,000 surgical masks, worth more than $42,500, donated by the International Relations Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

The masks will be delivered to the National Health System so that they can be placed in those places where they are most needed, said Angel Arzuaga, Deputy Chief of the Ideological Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, during the official delivery ceremony held at the central warehouses of the Medical Supply Company.

Arzuaga thanked the Asian nation for its gesture of solidarity, which has maintained close and fruitful ties with his country in the confrontation with COVID-19, and stressed that only solidarity will make it possible to protect the lives of as many people as possible.

"Cuba has expressed its support to China since the outbreak of the pandemic and today we can see the fruits of cooperation, for example, in the area of biotechnology, through the use of recombinant Interferon alpha-2b in patients in that country," said the official.

He stressed that at a time when the U.S. government is increasing the blockade against the Caribbean country, which prevents the acquisition of equipment and supplies, acts of cooperation are materializing between Cuba and China, two socialist nations, based on mutual respect and equality.

Chen Xi, Ambassador of the People's Republic of China in Cuba, said that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the cause of COVID-19, knows no borders or nationalities, and that only with solidarity and cooperation can the virus be defeated.

The first batch of Chinese donations -- which arrived in early April -- has been distributed satisfactorily.  A second shipment donated by the Asian giant's government is scheduled to arrive tomorrow afternoon, and then a third.