Chinese medical team hailed for easing disease burden at South Sudan’s orphanage

Published: October 25,2022

Confident Children out of Conflict (CCC) orphanage in South Sudan often runs out of essential medicines to treat more than 200 minors.

Ayam Joseph Kuenda, a 14-year-old orphan, is among the over 200 children at the orphanage who would struggle to afford clinical examination and treatment for malaria if these services had not been made available by the tenth batch of the Chinese medical team. Kuenda who has been staying at the orphanage in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, since 2018, is grateful for the monthly visits by the Chinese medical team because of the free medical treatment offered to all children.

 Malaria is one of the major killer diseases blighting infants in the world’s youngest republic.”Those people (Chinese) are good, they brought us many things, snacks, and medicines so that we can be treated,” Kuenda told Xinhua during a visit by the Chinese medical team at the orphanage on Saturday.

Adeke Lilian, a nurse at the children’s orphanage, said that without the visits by the Chinese medical team, they would be incurring huge expenses every month to treat sick minors. “It is not easy, but with the help of the Chinese doctors we can manage because they bring us medicines, they do medical checkups and also we refer some of these sick children to them in Juba Teaching Hospital,” said Lilian. “We often run out of medicine, but when they come and visit us we can get the medicine and treat the children,” she added.

 Hellen Mushall Boro, the Executive Director of CCC, said they also have children with chronic diseases like HIV/AIDS. Boro said the malaria medicine and antibiotics provided by the Chinese medical team ease expenses incurred on clinical examination and buying expensive tablets. Boro noted that the orphanage spends the bulk of its budget on health care.

Xu Zhanwei, team leader of the 10th batch of the Chinese medical team, promised to continue the visits to the orphanage like the previous medical teams have done over the years.”Children are the future of a country and not only in South Sudan but in all countries including China, so we should give these orphans more care and love,” said Xu. “We will continue to come to CCC every month to do medical checkups and offer treatment for these children,” Xuadded. The Chinese medical team also provided sports equipment to the children. 

The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), South Sudan Humanitarian Fund, and the United States embassy are among the supporters of the orphanage. Xu leads his team of medical experts from Anhui Province that works alongside their South Sudanese counterparts to examine and treat patients in Juba Teaching Hospital, South Sudan’s largest teaching and referral hospital. Since 2012, the Chinese medical team has offered free medical services in South Sudan and also helped with the capacity building of local health workers and medical students.

Xinhua