BEIJING - A group of top-level doctors treated about 35,000 patients in 2011 thanks to a charity campaign to bring medical services to some underdeveloped regions in China, the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced Friday.

The medical team has toured underdeveloped, landlocked and border regions, as well as areas predominantly inhabited by ethnic minority groups, in 18 provinces, offering medical services to 35,000 people, including over 800 surgical procedures.

Furthermore, they have delivered about 800 academic lectures and participated in more than 2,000 consultations on difficult cases. They have also taken medical devices, drugs and medical books worth over 800,000 yuan ($126,000) as donations, the MOH said.

The team members were from Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing, Shanghai-based Zhongshan Hospital and Guangzhou-based The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. It was founded in 2011 under the instruction of the MOH.