FUZHOU — A team of 14 medical experts from East China's Fujian province departed on a chartered flight to Italy on the morning of March 25 to aid the European country's fight against the COVID-19 outbreak.

The team consists of experts from several hospitals and the center for disease control and prevention (CDC) of Fujian, as well as an epidemiologist from the national CDC and a pulmonologist of Anhui province.

The experts specialize in areas including respiratory, intensive care, infectious disease, hospital infection control, traditional Chinese medicine, and nursing.

Their missions will include sharing experience in COVID-19 prevention and control with local hospitals and experts and providing treatment advice.

They will also provide disease prevention and control know-how to Chinese communities and students in Italy, and offer them protective supplies and traditional Chinese medicines.

The experts will mainly work in the Tuscany region of Italy.

The flight took off at about 11:10 am from the Fuzhou Changle International Airport and is scheduled to arrive in Milan of Italy at 4:45 pm local time.

Also on board the plane were about 8 tons of medical supplies donated by the province, including 30 ventilators, 20 sets of medical monitors, 3,000 protective suits, 300,000 medical masks, 20,000 N95-rated masks, and 3,000 face shields.

Previously, China had sent two medical groups with a total of 22 people along with more than 20 tons of medical supplies to support Italy's epidemic fight.

The COVID-19 had claimed 6,820 lives as of the evening of March 24 in Italy, which has lost more lives than any other country to the pandemic. The cumulative number of novel coronavirus cases in Italy reached 69,176, the largest number outside China.