EU sends medical team to Italy to help fight COVID-19
Xinhua
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The ICU unit in a Rome hospital (Photo: AFP)

BRUSSELS, April 7 (Xinhua) -- A team of European doctors and nurses from Romania and Norway is being dispatched to Milan and Bergamo to help Italian medical staff battle the coronavirus pandemic, the European Union (EU) said Tuesday in a statement.

According to the statement, the medical team is deployed through the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism. Austria has also offered over 3,000 liters of disinfectant to Italy via the Mechanism.

"These nurses and doctors, who left their homes to help their colleagues in other Member States are the true faces of European solidarity ... The Commission is doing everything it can to help Italy and all our Member States at this time of great need," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in the statement.

The EU's Copernicus satellite system has also been activated by Italy to map health facilities as well as public spaces during the coronavirus emergency.

On Monday, Italy also received a delivery of personal protective equipment from China, after the European Commission's Emergency Response Coordination Center coordinated the distribution. The Commission said a Chinese plane delivered 2 million surgical masks, 200,000 N95 masks and 50,000 testing kits to Italy.