Fight against child mortality | Muso’s impact in Mali & Ivory Coast

Muso is an organisation that makes healthcare available to residents of Mali and Ivory Coast. Founders Djoumé Diakité and Ari Johnson tell us how child mortality in Mali has fallen spectacularly thanks to their NGO.

Dr Djoume Diakité - Muso's country director

In 2005, when Malian doctor Djoumé Diakité and his American colleague Ari Johnson made plans to improve the healthcare of the poor population of Mali, 15% of children under the age of five used to die. As it was not possible to establish the exact cause of this high infant mortality and the poor health situation in general, the doctors and six other medical experts moved to Yirimadio, a fast-growing suburb of Mali’s capital Bamako.

‘We wanted to live among the people we wanted to help,’ says Diakité. Communities are the ones who know best what they need. We asked people about the healthcare obstacles they faced.’ People said that they had to travel huge distances to get medical help. This meant they often arrived too late. And they had to pay for every medical procedure and every medication. Johnson: ‘If you barely have enough money to eat, then medical care is unaffordable; and that’s the case for most Malians. I started out thinking that malaria was the leading cause of death, but I learned from the locals that reality was more complex. People die from infections that could be cured with a simple course of antibiotics.’

Aissata Coulibaly, a CHW based in Yirimadio, takes a rapid malaria test of 8 year old Alhassan Traore, during rounds in the neighborhood in Bamako, Mali.

Many deaths are preventable when healthcare is affordable and accessible, concluded the founders of Muso, a group of eight Malians and Americans. They formally founded Muso in 2008 and made a joint commitment that no one should have to die while awaiting medical care.

Free

The non-profit organisation now provides free medical care and medicines in poor areas of Mali and also in parts of neighbouring Ivory Coast. An essential link in the organisation is a network of some 1,100 female district nurses who make home visits, including to remote villages in the desert. This allows them to reach people who were previously deprived of any form of medical care. They treat common diseases like malaria and diarrhoea on the spot. In the event of complications, seriously ill patients and pregnant women are quickly referred to clinics for free specialist care. Muso recruits and trains these district nurses themselves.

Mrs. Fatoumata Coulybali, mother of 2 year old Oumar Oulale, in consultation with Doctor Konake Amadou for a diagnosis of cough. Colds and fever fully covered by Muso.

Muso has been so successful that within a decade, infant mortality in Yirimadio has dropped to 0.7% – the lowest rate in the entire Sub-Saharan region and comparable to the infant mortality rate in the United States. Johnson, CEO of Muso, attributes a large part of its success to its connections with various philanthropic partners – including SAS-P – but also to a fruitful cooperation with the Malian government. Diakité says that a lot of diplomacy was required to get local administrators and politicians on board. But the scientific medical research that Muso carried out is very convincing. His research showed that child mortality drops spectacularly when children are monitored and given basic medical care up to the age of five.

‘It’s a privilege to be able to do this work’

In recent years, Mali has been plagued by war violence, but despite this, infant mortality has remained low in the area where Muso operates. ‘We and our partners have learned that we are able to set up a care system that can even counteract the impact of war,’ says Johnson. ‘It’s a privilege to be able to do this work,’ adds Diakité.