Peking University, March 3, 2023: Over the past 60 years since China began sending medical teams to foreign countries, PKU medical personnel have played an important role. They have engaged in Africa’s life-and-death war with Ebola, embarked on a yearslong “Brightness Trip” to help people regain vision, and provided humanitarian medical aid around the world, all of which have demonstrated the kindness, selfless dedication, and the boundless love of generations of PKU medical professionals.

The largest humanitarian medical aid in history, a life-and-death war with Ebola

In 2014, a sudden outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever ravaged West Africa, causing widespread concerns around the world. China later sent humanitarian medical aid of the largest scale in its history to Africa, among which a host of medical professionals from PKU Medicine joined the medical team, including Mo Gaiqi from Peking University Third Hospital (PKUTH) and Cao Baoping from Peking University People's Hospital (PKUPH).


Through unremitting efforts of the expert group and the response of the local health authority, the Ebola epidemic in Guinea was gradually brought under control. Before completing his work and returning home, Bian Jianqiang, Chinese Ambassador to Guinea, met with the expert group and the medical team at the embassy. Ambassador Bian fully affirmed their work, saying that the persistence of the medical team was the greatest support for Guinea.

"China brings back my eyesight!" ---A brightness trip lasting for several years

In July 2012, the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation reviewed and approved the Beijing Action Plan. According to the Plan, to deepen China-Africa medical and health cooperation, China would carry out the "Brightness Trip" in Africa, provide free treatment for cataract patients, and donate medical supplies.

Since then, PKUFH has sent medical teams to the Caribbean three times to carry out the cataract surgery mission of the "Brightness Trip."


As of February 2023, PKUPH has participated in nine missions of the Brightness Trip in Africa, restoring sight to patients in five countries. Since 2019, PKUPH has joined the Belt and Road Initiative’s action and undertaken medical assistance tasks in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and other countries.

The "Brightness Trip" represents the first time to provide cataract phacoemulsification and foldable intraocular lens to the African continent and also the first time to apply foldable intraocular lens in the history of China's medical aid to Africa. Such large-scale, high-volume, and concentrated assistance also marks the first time in the history of international aid to Africa, which has filled the gap in the ophthalmology cause of the whole African continent.
  

During the "Brightness Trip," 576 cataract operations were performed for patients in Botswana, and more than 40 local medical personnel were trained. In response to the benevolent endeavor, Botswana's media reported that ordinary people in Botswana passed word of mouth, saying, "Thank you, Chinese!"

The Chinese medical aid team to Africa was first dispatched in 1963. In fact, as early as 1962, Feng Chuanhan, a senior professor at the Department of Orthopedics at PKUPH, was sent by the Ministry of Health to Somalia in Africa for medical investigation and research.

PKU Medicine has been carrying on the mission of serving the people’s health from generation to generation and as a benevolent envoy, in a bid to spread the Chinese doctors' mission to the world.

In the future, PKU Medical staff will bear in mind traditions, vigorously carry forward the spirit of the Chinese medical team, which is being heedless of danger and difficulty, being willing to sacrifice, saving the wounded and rescuing the dying, and offering boundless love, so as to benefit the local people with benevolence, tell the Chinese stories well with actions, and make greater contributions to promoting the building of a community of common health for mankind.

Written by: Wu Zhaoxia
Edited by: Meng Bin
Source: PKUFH, PKUPH, PKUTH