Peace Ark makes first visit to S. Africa

CAPE TOWN — The Chinese naval hospital ship Peace Ark, which is on the Mission Harmony-2024, arrived in South Africa on Thursday. The seven-day visit is the ship's first in South Africa.

In addition to providing medical services, Peace Ark's medical expert teams will administer treatment in local hospitals and conduct academic exchanges on traditional Chinese medicine in the Confucius Institute for Chinese Medicine at the University of the Western Cape, according to China Military Online.

Mission Harmony-2024, the 10th for Peace Ark since its commissioning in 2008, started on June 16 when the ship set sail from a military port in Zhoushan, East China's Zhejiang province.

During the mission, the hospital ship provided medical treatment to nearly 1,200 people per day in the Seychelles and welcomed a baby born on the ship in Tanzania, said Zhang Xiaogang, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, at a media conference on July 25. The ship will visit 13 countries for the mission and provide medical services to the locals.

There are over 100 personnel on board the maritime hospital, featuring 17 clinical departments and five auxiliary diagnostic departments.

Peace Ark is the first domestically designed and constructed standard ocean-going hospital ship in China. It had visited 45 countries and regions in previous missions, providing medical services to over 290,000 people.

Xinhua