Although his family already knew the heart surgery on the young boy had gone successfully in Germany, they were still too excited to say anything when meeting their now healthy boy.

Before Min's medical trip to Germany in February, he was at the edge of death due to a rare and complicated heart disease.

The boy had a serious congenital heart disease together with various malformations in the heart. During his childhood, he grew much more slowly than his peers due to his poor physical condition.

Although his parents took him to big hospitals around China, doctors failed to ease the boy's ailment because his severe heart condition was too complex to be operated upon.

As time passed, the child's disease got more and more severe until his parents came to Shanghai East Hospital, which has a medical co-operation project with the Deutsches Herzzentrum Berlin.

"When the boy arrived in our hospital, we found his situation was very terrible," recalled professor Liu Zhongmin, who works in the centre.

"Only 6 to 7 children among every 10,000 suffer from congenital heart disease, while Min's case only accounts for 5 per cent of such patients."

Since the complicated heart disease was too challenging to be treated in a local hospital, the only way to save the boy was to ask for medical help from the centre in Berlin.

The request from the young Chinese boy received a quick response from the German centre, which also provided Min with a special fund of 70,000 euros (US$70,000) for for his medical and living expenses.

(Shanghai Star March 22, 2003)