China on Monday appreciated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s letter to President Xi Jinping offering solidarity and assistance to deal with the deadly coronavirus outbreak, saying it “fully demonstrated” New Delhi’s friendship with Beijing.

In a letter written to the Chinese President, PM Modi had expressed solidarity with Xi Jinping and the people of the Asian country over the outbreak of the rapidly-spreading novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) that has so far claimed 908 lives.

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PM Modi offered India’s assistance to face the challenge. He also offered condolences at the unfortunate loss of lives.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also conveyed appreciation for the facilitation provided by the Government of China for the evacuation of Indian citizens from the Hubei province of China.

In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said, “We thank and appreciate India’s support for China’s fight against the NCP Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia, the official name for coronavirus”.

“India’s acts of goodwill fully demonstrate its friendship with China,” Geng said during an online media briefing while replying to a question on PM Modi’s letter to President Jinping.

A sizeable number of countries have evacuated their citizens from China and restricted movement of people and goods to and from China.

India too has put restrictions on the movement of people to and from China as part of precautionary measures to contain the spread of the virus.

“We stand ready to work with India and other members of the international community to jointly tackle fight the epidemic and safeguard regional and global public health security,” Geng said.

Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri told the Indian media on Monday that India was in touch with Chinese officials to find out the immediate requirements to deal with the epidemic.

India had last Thursday offered all possible assistance to China in grappling with the situation arising from the novel Coronavirus and said it could also consider evacuating Pakistani students from epidemic-hit Wuhan city if the situation arose and a request was received from Islamabad.