WASHINGTON, March 3 (Xinhua) -- The United States and China should cooperate immediately to stop the COVID-19 pandemic, two researchers with a Washington D.C.-based think tank have said.

The urgent task of putting the coronavirus under control "can only be accomplished through global coordination, which requires the active engagement of the two largest economies in the world," wrote Cheng Li and Ryan McElveen with the Brookings Institution in a report published on Tuesday.

The researchers argued that the governments of the two countries have a long history of collaborating to fight global health crises such as SARS. Meanwhile, facing COVID-19, medical experts and scientists on both sides have preserved extensive communication and "cooperated on coronavirus research more with each other than with any other country."

The tradition of public health cooperation between Washington and Beijing and strong ties in the medical community lay the foundation for a return to U.S.-China governmental cooperation.

As variants of the coronavirus are emerging around the world, it is essential to keep transparency and sharing of data, and establish a global surveillance network for tracing, screening and warning of the variants. These efforts should also be based on cooperation between the two sides, the scholars suggested.

Considering that vaccines are deemed as the ultimate solution to the crisis, the co-writers believe "the U.S. and China should engage in positive competition and work together to promote effective vaccines platforms."

They also called the two countries to jointly increase vaccine manufacturing capacity for the world and enhance equitable international distribution of doses.

"Joint efforts by Washington and Beijing today will send inspiring signals to save lives," the scholars said, adding that "collaborating on COVID-19 can help set the stage for addressing other issues of global public good, including climate change and nuclear nonproliferation."