国内英语资讯:Feature: Chinese medical team provides free treatment in rural Cameroon_时事

国内英语资讯:Feature: Chinese medical team provides free treatment in rural Cameroon

YAOUNDE, Aug. 18 -- In early August, on the eve of the arrival of a medical team with free services, villagers gathered in groups of twos and threes, buzzing with tales of the wondrous Chinese doctors.

"Without them, I would have been dead" said Christophe Ndi Owona, the 76-year-old chief of the southern Cameroonian village of Ngat-Bane.

Before Chinese doctors came to his village, Owona had been suffering from severe headache for years. "Everybody thought I would die."

The team gave him medicine and advised him to stop drinking alcohol, Owona told his folks. "Thanks to the Chinese, I am now as healthy as a baby."

Ngat-Bane, like many other Cameroonian villages, has abundant wildlife and dispersed thatched huts, but zero hospitals. Villagers are often troubled by such health problems as rheumatism, typhoid, malaria, but most of them cannot afford medical services in Mbalmayo, the nearest town.

The next day, in the heartland of Ngat-Bane, a good number of patients from nearby villages gathered in a makeshift, but free and comprehensive clinic, lining up to see doctors from various departments, who are here as members of the 19th Chinese medical team to Cameroon.

For the first time in almost a year, 69-year-old Liliane Mfoumou felt relieved from her back injury after an acupuncture treatment. Before this, the mother of six had visited doctors several times in Mbalmayo, a major city in Cameroon's Central Province.