A Chinese medical group composed of 10 military surgeons and logistics staff left Beijing Tuesday afternoon for Zambia to offer aid for a local military hospital.

The group, including surgeons, urologists, physiotherapists, gynecologists and obstetricians, will stay in Zambia for one and half a year to provide personnel and technical assistance to local people vulnerable to such epidemic diseases as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and hepatitis.

China has sent more than 100 military officers on 11 separate occasions to Zambia in the past two decades since 1984, helping to cure local people of numerous diseases.

(Xinhua News Agency September 28, 2005)