The 12 member Chinese Medical Expert Team left Harare on Monday after a two-week work visit during which they exchanged notes with their Zimbabwean counterparts. They were seen off the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport by Minister of Information, Monica Mutsvangwa, Deputy Minister of Health, Dr John Mangwiro and Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Guo Shaochun.
Minister Mutsvangwa spelt out how the country has benefitted from the exchange visit with the Chinese Medical Expert Team. She expressed her hope that the Chinese doctors might want to come back and work in the country’s medical field.
“I have no doubt that the Ministry of Health and Child Care and all the medical professionals in this country have benefited a lot from this team, this is a team which went through it all… we hear that in most towns like Wuhan which was the epicentre of this pandemic, numbers have actually gone down and people have gone back to work, so we are continuously looking forward to learn how they have actually intervened and what kind of interventions they did.
“Dr Zhu I hope among your team we will have some doctors who in future will say I want to go and work with Zimbabwean medical fraternity,” said Minister Mutsvangwa.
Dr Mangwiro expressed his pleasure in the knowledge that was obtained from the Chinese team.
“When the team came, the team itself was expectant, we also were expectant. We said these were the people who were on the forefront fighting the disease from within and we were not disappointed,” said Dr Mangwiro.
“In the process there was massive cross pollination of knowledge and we learnt a lot they taught us from the anatomy of the virus, the physiology and treatment from the usage of Western and Chinese medicines, all those were very relevant,” said the Health Deputy Minister.
Ambassador Guo spoke highly of the benefits reaped from the exchange visit and that Zimbabwe has fascinated the visitors on how it was utilising resources at its disposal.
“Today we have the confidence to say the tour work mission by the Chinese Medical Expert Team has been very productive and their constructive process in Zimbabwe can be achieved thanks to the gratitude by His Excellency President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the full support by the Chinese government.
“During their stay in Zimbabwe as short as two weeks, Chinese experts told me several times that they are really impressed by what Zimbabwe had achieved by making best use of what they have,” said Ambassador Guo.
The Chinese Medical Expert Team was in the country for two weeks and it shared with members of the Zimbabwean medical fraternity and donated various medical equipment and personal protection equipment (PPE).
