The less-told stories of China’s health cooperation with Africa
Yi Fan
A small mountain village in Jimma, southwest Ethiopia, is the place where Chinese cardiovascular expert Mei Gengnian was laid to rest. Head of China’s first medical team to Ethiopia in 1974, Dr Mei treated more than 300 patients and performed seven operations on his busiest day. However, the Chinese doctor’s Africa trip ended abruptly one and a half year later when he died of a tragic car accident after wrapping up medical consultations in a disaster-stricken area. Yet his mantle was taken up by his son, Mei Xueqian, who joined another Chinese medical team to Africa in 1998 and again headed to Ethiopia.
The story of Dr Mei and his son offers us a glimpse into China’s longstanding medical assistance to and health cooperation with Africa. In 1963, the first Chinese medical team set off from Beijing, transited in three different countries and arrived in Algeria 10 days later. In the six decades since, China has sent more than 22,000 medical personnel to Africa, providing more than 220 million diagnoses and treatments for people in over 50 countries in Africa.
Global narratives on Africa’s development place much emphasis on the economic dimension while the social dimension—public health in particular—is sometimes under-appreciated. Yet Africa, home to the largest number of developing countries, is determined to modernize its public health system, one of the priorities in the continent’s Agenda 2063.
For that to happen, a number of bottlenecks, ranging from professional skills, infrastructure development to disease preparedness, still need to be addressed. Within this context, China’s assistance to and cooperation with Africa on public health can be brought to bear. What started off as sending medical teams has been gradually broadened, as China shares experience it has gained in the course of its own public health modernization.
This starts, first and foremost, with capacity-building. Human resource management and health research are two of the strategic priorities laid out in the Africa Health Strategy (AHS) 2016-2030.
To meet this need, China has carried out medical training in various forms including clinical teaching, surgical demonstration, academic lectures, online courses and training programmes in China. In February this year, having received training by China’s 23rd medical team to the country, Zambian doctors independently performed, for the first time, endoscopic pituitary tumor surgery through nose, a type of operation once deemed too difficult that Zambians had to spend a large sum of savings and travel abroad for it.
On-the-ground training is complemented by the sharing of best practice in diagnostics and treatment. South Africa and China, for instance, enjoy longstanding cooperation on traditional medicine, which is employed by the former to improve health conditions in rural areas.
Assistance on health infrastructure is another crucial part of China’s cooperation with Africa. In the Strategy for Quality Health Infrastructure in Africa 2022-2030, the African Development Bank identified large and diverse health infrastructure needs due to the growing population on the continent.
With widely-acclaimed efficiency in infrastructure building, China stepped up to the plate. The Nigeria-China Friendship Hospital commissioned in 2013 is a case in point. With a total investment of over 12 million US dollars, the hospital was built within only 22 months, supplemented by grants of medical equipment to this health facility.
Such efficiency was also manifested at the height of the Covid pandemic when China helped design, build and deliver Nigeria’s largest makeshift hospital in a month. Over the years, China has helped to build more than 130 hospitals and clinics across the continent, improving local access to health facilities.
In addition, cooperation is geared increasingly towards disease preparedness. As is made clear in the AHS, prevention is the most cost-effective way to reduce burdens on the health system.
A good example would be the 100-bed diagnosis and treatment center in Liberia built by China during the Ebola outbreak, which was designed for rapid virus detection.
A more recent example is the headquarters of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), whose first phase was inaugurated earlier this year. This flagship project announced by China in 2018 during the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation stands as the first pan-African CDC. It will strengthen African countries’ capacity to “detect, prevent, control and respond quickly and effectively to disease threats”, as its official website promises.
Six decades of medical assistance to Africa is more than a high-sounding promise; it is a practical demonstration of sincerity, real results, amity and good faith, a commitment made by President Xi Jinping 10 years ago on his first visit to the continent. These principles continue to guide China’s engagement with its African partners.
Broadly speaking, China’s cooperation with Africa can be seen as an outgrowth of its tried-and-tested development philosophy at home. It stresses people-centered, implementation-driven and future-oriented development, which is considered key to kick-starting modernization processes.
China has articulated a long-term objective of achieving modernization by mid-century, which by and large aligns with Africa’s timeframe for attaining its development goals by 2063. It can be expected that cooperation on public health, among others, is set to gain momentum in the years to come.
Yi Fan is a Beijing-based international affairs commentator and a regular contributor to The Independent Online, Pretoria News, and The Reporter (Ethiopia) .