LUSAKA, Jan. 15 (ChinaMil) -- The Ministry of Defense of Zambia conferred the International Cooperation Medal on the 11 members of the 21st Chinese military medical team to aid Zambia on Monday. The medal-awarding ceremony was held at the Zambian Army Headquarters in recognition of the outstanding contributions made by these Chinese military medical experts.
Senior officers from the Zambian Ministry of Defense and Lai Bo, Chargé d'Affaires ad interim of the Chinese Embassy in Zambia, attended the medal-awarding ceremony.
Major General Dennis Alibuzwi, Deputy Commander of the Zambia Army, spoke on behalf of the Zambian Government, the Defense Ministry and the Armed Forces at the ceremony, and expressed his heartfelt gratitude to the Chinese team for providing constant and enormous medical assistance to Zambia. He said he hopes the friendship between the two countries will continue to develop and the cooperation in various fields will be further expanded and deepened.
In his speech, Lai recounted that China’s Defense Ministry has started to send military medical teams to Zambia since 1984, and up to now a total of 277 Chinese military doctors have performed medical aid missions at the General Hospital of the Zambian Defense Force located in Lusaka.
Lai spoke highly of the 21st Chinese military medical team for their outstanding jobs and their contributions to enhance the friendship between the two countries and their militaries. He congratulated the 11 team members on being awarded the medal.
Xia Yang, head of the 21st Chinese military medical team to aid Zambia, said that all the team members have fulfilled their mission and completed the foreign aid medical mission successfully during their tenure. He said the Chinese military medical team is grateful for the enormous help from the Zambian Government, the Defense Ministry, the General Hospital of the Zambian Defense Force and the Chinese Embassy in Zambia.
It is learnt that the 11 Chinese military doctors are personnel of many Chinese hospitals from departments including cardiology, orthopedics, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, stomatology, general surgery, blood purification, gastroenterology, radiology, and medical engineering. They arrived in Zambia on January 11, 2018 for the one-year aid mission. The 22nd Chinese military medical team to aid Zambia has arrived in the African country recently.
