News from Neba and Mafany

09/08/2021 – A new life for twins Neba and Mafany

Mariela, open-heart surgery in Madagascar

2 LINKED DESTINIES AND A NEW LIFE TAKING SHAPE

What could be more normal than twin brothers who look exactly alike? But for Neba and Mafany, born in Cameroon in 2020, fate decided to take this similarity to the extreme. Both babies suffered from cleft lip and palate. This anomaly, often synonymous with curse and exclusion in Africa, deformed their faces and even prevented them from eating normally. Destitute, their parents sought help and discovered the existence of La Chaîne de l’Espoir. As luck would have it, Professor Alain Deloche knows Professor Mouafo Tambo, a pediatric surgeon practicing in the capital Yaoundé, very well.

He had already been involved in the exceptional care of the Siamese twins Bissie and Eyenga that we rescued in 2019, and it turns out that he knows how to operate on this type of facial pathology.
Neba and Mafany underwent a first operation to close their upper lip. A second operation repaired their palates and restored harmony to their faces. Our heartfelt thanks for making this double miracle possible!

04/27/2021 – Neba and Mafany need your help!

Two fates linked by misfortune
While it’s common for twins to look alike, there’s one similarity that Neba and Mafany could certainly have done without… A cleft lip and palate, a facial anomaly once known as “cleft lip”. A congenital malformation, it deforms both brothers’ faces. Worse still, this double cleft lip and palate hampers their ability to swallow properly. This makes it impossible to feed them adequately, except by plugging their noses.

If they had been born in France, things would have been different
However, if they had been born in France, things would have been different. Their mother would have benefited from pregnancy monitoring and an ultrasound scan, which would have uncovered this congenital pathology. Here, the problem would have been spotted even before they were born. As early as the fifth week of pregnancy, when the palate and lip should normally join to form the face of the newborn. An operation for both boys could then have been scheduled before delivery. But Neba and Mafany were born in Bertoua, in the east of Cameroon. And it was not until the twins were in her arms that their mother was able to see the tragic deformity her children had suffered.

When Neba and Mafany were born, the shock was twofold
Added to this, for their parents, was the fear of seeing their children rejected, in a country where malformations are still often synonymous with curses. They immediately sought help. When they learned that surgery was possible, a glimmer of hope was born. But the cost of the operation was too high for the modest family… Destitute, their father, who runs a small grocery store, kept searching high and low for help. That’s when he turned to our Chaîne!

In Cameroon, a Professor is ready to operate on twins
In Cameroon, we have been caring for many sick children for two decades. As a result, we have forged strong links with local medical teams. There, we already know the right person to operate on the twins: Professor Faustin Mouafo Tambo. To give Neba and Mafany back their most beautiful smiles, the pediatric surgeon at the Yaoundé Gyneco-Obstetric and Pediatric Hospital will certainly have to perform two successive operations. The first, to close the clefts, and the second, to restore harmony to their faces!

Together, let’s give hope and a smile to a whole family
Together, we can give Neba, Mafany and their parents a smile and hope for a better life. If you donate 26 euros today, 99 more of our friends will join us, and we’ll have reached our goal. The twins, now 7 months old, will be operated on very quickly, and in just a few weeks, thanks to you, they will be cured…

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