Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, the co-founder of the online retail giant Alibaba, said he is donating 500,000 testing kits and 1 million masks to the United States to fight the spread of coronavirus.

"All the best to our friends in America," read a tweet from Ma. He included photos of pallets of cargo loaded onto a flight to the US.

The China-made protective gear and test kits took off from Shanghai's airport in a chartered cargo plane Monday morning, and will be handed over to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) when they arrive.

In a statement posted on The Jack Ma Foundation, Ma said he, along with the Alibaba Foundation have sourced and shipped 1.8 million masks and 100,000 test kits to Italy, Spain and other European nations.

Ma said the outbreak presents "a huge challenge to all humankind in a globalized world," and that he has drawn from his own country's experience that quick and accurate testing as well as protective equipment for medical personnel are most effective in preventing the spread of the virus.

"We need to combat the virus working hand-in-hand," he said.

According to data compiled by the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, there have been more than 81,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in China, where the virus first emerged in the city of Wuhan. There have been 3,217 deaths in the country and 67,910 people there have recovered so far.

In the US, there have been more than 3,800 confirmed cases and 69 deaths as of midday Monday.