A 30-strong medical team on Saturday left Lanzhou, capital of northwest China's Gansu Province, for a two-year mission in Madagascar.

 

It is China's 16th medical detachment to the east African country since 1975.

 

Zhong Liangting, leader of the team and three-time veteran of Madagascar, said the members were chosen from medical organizations across Gansu, and included specialists in internal medicine, surgery, orthopaedics and gynecology.

 

The team would provide services to local people in four hospitals.

 

Gansu has sent 444 medical workers to work in Madagascar in the past 31 years, of whom 51 have been awarded national honors by Madagascar.

 

China has sent a total of 15,000 medical personnel to 47 African nations and regions since the dispatch of its first medical team to Algeria in 1963, according to the Foreign Ministry.

 

About 950 Chinese medical staff are currently working in 36 African nations.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 4, 2006)