On the evening of August 7, the medical expert group consisting of WCH’s 10 experts dispatched to Azerbaijan for rendering assistance in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic returned to Chengdu peacefully. This group was assigned by the National Health Commission and the Health Commission of Sichuan Province. Akram Zeynalli, Ambassador of Azerbaijan’s Embassy in China, Shen Ji, Party Secretary of the Health Commission of Sichuan Province, Han Yu, Director of Hospital Management Department, West China Medical Center of SCU, Wang Kunjie and Huang Jin, deputy presidents of West China Hospital, among others, welcomed the expert group at the airport.

At the invitation of the Azerbaijan Government and with the deployment of the State, the medical expert group took a flight from Chengdu to Azerbaijan with medical rescue supplies donated by the Chinese government, and assisted Azerbaijan in the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Upon arrival at Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, the expert group was divided into three professional teams of pandemic prevention and control, lab testing, and medical rescue (including nursing). The group went to 10 medical institutions at Baku, Jalilabad and Sumqayit for field research. The medical rescue team conducted field investigations in the mild and intensive wards of Covid-19 designated hospitals, and conducted rounds of 105 critically ill patients through bedside guidance or remote online methods. The pandemic prevention and control team investigated and screened the patients in the designated hospitals, ordinary hospitals and mobile cabin hospitals in respect of the medical process, ward management and personal protection for medical workers, while the lab testing team conducted field research on the clinical nucleic acid testing labs (under construction or in service), and inspected the testing process, equipment configuration and space planning.

Based on the relevant pandemic conditions brief by the side of Azerbaijan and the opinions collected from Azerbaijan’s experts at the joint work meetings, the expert group prepared eight work reports detailing 95 specific suggestions on Azerbaijan’s pandemic conditions and existing problems.

Also, the expert group exchanged views with Azerbaijan peers and provided 106 times of technical guidance about the problems discovered in the investigation; meanwhile, it held a special academic seminar with Azerbaijan’s TABIB Science Committee. To address Azerbaijan’s needs and main bottlenecks discovered during the investigation, and based on successful practice and experience, the expert group held special seminars online or offline for Azerbaijan’s medical workers, the Chinese institutions, overseas Chinese and Chinese students in Azerbaijan, involving the rescue of COVID-19 patients, lab testing, process design for hospital infections, personal protection for medical workers, and usage of TCM, attracting the attendance of over 1,000 persons.