BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that China will continue to advance global cooperation on epidemic response, strengthen joint prevention and control, and assist countries and regions in need.

"We will never slacken such efforts until humanity secures a final victory against COVID-19," he said in a recent interview with Xinhua News Agency and China Media Group.

Wang summarized China's contributions and support to the global COVID-19 response in six respects, including being the first country to report cases to the world, taking the most rigorous control measures to fight the virus, conducting the largest-scale online exchanges on epidemic response, providing urgently needed assistance by launching the largest global emergency humanitarian campaign since the founding of the People's Republic of China, doing its best as the largest manufacturer of medical supplies, and being the first to pledge to make vaccines a global public good.

"When hit by an unknown coronavirus, China took immediate actions to carry out epidemiological investigation, identify the pathogen and publicize key information including the genome sequencing of the virus. All this sounded alarm bells across the world," he said.

Wang said that China effectively controlled the virus within the shortest possible time, and steadily resumed economic and social activities, making an early contribution to building a strong global line of defense against the virus.

"We organized over 100 video meetings with experts from other countries, opened an online knowledge center to share China's experiences with all countries, and published eight updated versions of diagnosis and therapeutic solutions and seven updated versions of prevention and control protocols," he said.

To help people across the world prevailing over the virus, China has provided assistance to over 150 countries and 10 international organizations, sent 36 medical teams to 34 countries in need and provided funding to WHO and other relevant UN agencies, according to Wang.

As the largest manufacturer of medical supplies, China has provided countries around the world with over 220 billion masks, 2.25 billion protective suits and over 1 billion testing kits, Wang said.

"We were the first to pledge to make vaccines a global public good, bearing in mind the greater good of humanity," he said.