NAIROBI: For three years, Seif Amour Rajab could barely open his mouth.
Seif was 16 when he fell from a mango tree and fractured his jaw. On Tanzania’s remote Pemba Island, the hospital could do little. The jaw slowly locked shut; eating became a struggle, then speech. The once-active teenager withdrew into silence.
It was not until last December, after a four-hour operation by Chinese doctors, that Seif could finally open his mouth and speak with ease again. “Thank you, Chinese doctors!” he said.
The surgeons who treated Seif belong to a mission now in its seventh decade. Since China sent its first medical team abroad in 1963, to Algeria, some 30 000 Chinese medical workers have served in 76 countries and regions, treating about 290 million patients, most of them in Africa.
The cooperation is expanding. Under the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Beijing Action Plan (2025-2027), China plans to send 2000 medical personnel and public health experts to Africa, build joint medical and traditional medicine centres and support the development of the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters and its sub-regional centres.
Lives saved
Last January, five children aged three to seven underwent congenital heart surgery at the Chinese-built Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The operations used a minimally invasive technique pioneered by Chinese doctors, avoiding open-heart surgery or radiation.
When Husna Shabaan Kingwande learnt that the operation on her three-year-old son, Ikram, had succeeded, the young mother wept with joy.
In June that year, the team behind the operations, the 27th Chinese medical team in Tanzania, lost its leader. Anesthesiologist Zhang Junqiao saw a woman drowning off a beach in Dar es Salaam and plunged in without hesitation. He held her above the water and gave her his own life jacket. She made it to safety. Zhang never made it back to shore.
In the six decades of the programme, more than 50 members of China’s medical teams abroad have, like Zhang, died far from their homeland.
Half a century ago, Mei Gengnian, who led China’s first medical team to Ethiopia, was killed in a road accident on his way back from a disaster-relief mission. In the Ethiopian city of Jimma, one family has tended his grave for two generations. Mei’s son later joined the Ethiopian teams himself.
Skills left behind
Chinese doctors treat patients and teach local doctors to treat them. Since 1963, Chinese medical teams have trained more than 100 000 local health workers.
One evening last November, a two-year-old boy was rushed to Abdulla Mzee Hospital on Pemba Island after swallowing a coin more than 48 hours earlier.
Such emergencies once meant a transfer off the island or a wait for visiting specialists. That evening, local doctor Harun Maisara Mahkum extracted the coin himself for the first time, guided by He Zhilong, an otolaryngologist from the 35th Chinese medical team.
“I was nervous,” Mahkum recalled. “But doctor trusted me to lead.”
Mahkum, now 30, has worked alongside Chinese medical teams for eight years.
“Before the Chinese doctors came, we could not perform surgeries like this on our own. We depended on outside specialists,” he said. “Now, I can act immediately in emergencies. It is empowering and it changes the way we serve our community.”
In Dar es Salaam, a training session on the technology behind Ikram’s heart operation drew about 50 Tanzanian cardiologists.
In a country where roughly one in 100 newborns had a congenital heart defect, it was a lifesaving technology, Tanzanian paediatrician Theophylly Ludovick said.
Such teaching reaches across the continent. On July 27, the China-Africa partnership on minimally invasive medicine was launched in Addis Ababa, where Ethiopian centres for robot-assisted surgery training and for laparoscopic techniques were inaugurated.
“These two training centres are only a starting point,” said Liu Longfei, the vice-president of Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, which leads the programme.
- Seif Amour Rajab, who had a locked jaw from a fracture, was successfully treated by Chinese doctors after a four-hour operation on Tanzania's Pemba Island.
- Since 1963, China has sent around 30,000 medical personnel to 76 countries and regions, treating approximately 290 million patients, primarily in Africa.
- China plans to send 2,000 medical personnel to Africa under the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Beijing Action Plan (2025-2027) and will support medical center development and Africa CDC headquarters.
- Chinese medical teams have trained over 100,000 local health workers and introduced minimally invasive techniques for congenital heart surgery, significantly improving local medical capabilities.
- In Addis Ababa, Ethiopian centres for robot-assisted surgery training and laparoscopic techniques were inaugurated as part of a China-Africa partnership on minimally invasive medicine.
