CAPE TOWN — One impoverished district in South Africa's Cape Town on April 17 received donations from a Chinese company and the Chinese community in the city to help fight COVID-19.

The Chinese corporation named Longyuan Mulilo Wind Projects and the local Chinese community donated cash, food parcels, surgical masks and other medical supplies worth about 1.2 million rand (about $64,000) to the residents of the coronavirus-stricken Cape Flats, who have to rely on food parcels from the city due to a nationwide lockdown that started on March 26.

The donations were handed over to Cape Town Executive Mayor Dan Plato at the Chinese Consulate in Cape Town.

Noting that part of the donation will be used to buy food for the numerous soup kitchens which offer free meals to local people in need, Plato said "this donation will take us very very far, and we will definitely engage with other parties on the Cape Flats."

South Africa registered 178 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on April 17, the sharpest rise for a single day since the country recorded its first confirmed case on March 5, according to the Health Ministry.

As of 4 a.m. on April 18 local time, the country reported 2,783 confirmed cases and 50 deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally.