Doctor Zhong Risheng was determined to go to Africa regardless of his family's protests. The continent's pull was hard to ignore, as was his passion to help people.

Working as an anesthetist at the Second People's Hospital of Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, he joined a Chinese medical team bound for Niger in 2004 without hesitation.

"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 can remember clearly the sights that greeted him. On his first day at the hospital, a patient was sent for emergency treatment.

"I could barely understand what he was saying, and we ourselves were suffering jet lag. But he looked miserable," Zhong says.

The equipment was rudimentary, and doctors had to diagnose based on their experience and observation skills.

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

Then in 2005, famine struck.

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

Doctors themselves had little to eat-mostly sweet potatoes.

"Even in the deepest frustration, we harvested hope about humanity," he said, as many patients shared their precious peanuts and pumpkins.

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

With seven to eight operations each day, the work took a toll and Zhong contracted malaria.

"What I suffered is quite ordinary in Niger. Human beings are all equal in the face of disaster and misfortune; that's why we help each other" he said.

The medical team fulfilled its mission in 2006.

Zhong's second Africa mission was six years later, in 2012.He went to the Comoros islands off the coast of Africa, where 600,000 people shared just one anesthetist. He delivered lectures once a week to train nurses and doctors, and also helped to set up regulations for surgeries.

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

He put his experience in Africa on paper, and the resulting book, Chinese Doctors in Africa, won a prize.

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

zhangli@chinadaily.com.cn