Zhong Risheng was determined to go to Africa, despite his family's protests. The lure of the continent was irresistible-as was the doctor's passion for helping people.

While working as an anesthetist at the Second People's Hospital of Nanning, he didn't heitate to join a Chinese medical team sent to Niger in 2004.

"The country was tackling poverty and poor healthcare, but you can never understand it unless you see it," he says.

At the age of 34, the youngest of the 30 members of the team, Zhong arrived in Zinder, a city in southern Niger.

Now 47, he remembers clearly the sights that greeted him.

On the very first day he arrived at the hospital, a patient was sent for emergency treatment.

"I could barely understand what he said, and we ourselves were suffering jet lag, but he looked miserable."

The equipment was rudimentary and doctors had to diagnose based on their skill and observation.

On this occasion, the patient was saved, but Zhong was pretty sure that he was the only anesthetist in the hospital and probably in the whole city.

Then the scourge of famine hit the area in 2005.

"Death from starvation was becoming more common and we could do little to prevent it. The doctors were depressed at their inability to save lives."

The medics themselves had little to eat, just sweet potatoes.

"Even in the deepest frustration, we harvested hope from humanity," he says, describing how many patients shared their precious peanuts and pumpkins.

Some of them even dedicated their amulets - usually made of fur or leather-to the doctors, making them feel truly blessed.

With seven or eight operations each day, the work took a toll on his health and he fell ill with malaria.

"What I suffered is quite ordinary in Niger. Human beings are all equal before disaster and misfortune. That's why we help each other" he says.

The medical team ended its work in 2006.

His second Africa mission was six years later, in 2012. He went to the Comoros Islands, where 600,000 people shared just one anesthetist.

He delivered lectures once a week to train nurses and doctors and also helped set up operation regulations.

"Knowing how to fish is better than having a fish. The mission of Chinese doctors is to impart knowledge and our humanitarian spirit," he says.

He wrote a book about his experiences in Africa, Chinese Doctors in Africa, which won a prize.

"In 1963, the Chinese government sent its first medical team to Africa. As a result, 180 million people from 47 African countries and regions have benefited from China's aid," Zhong says. Generations of Chinese doctors have sacrificed their youth, or even their lives, for their career, a truth that people should know but few do."

zhangli@chinadaily.com.cn