Sali saved by a mission of a smile

You were touched by the distress of Sali, an 8-year-old boy from Burkina Faso whose lip was eaten away by Noma, the disease that devours faces. Completely eradicated in Europe, Noma continues to wreak havoc in many countries around the world, particularly in Africa. La Chaîne de l’Espoir organizes reconstructive surgery missions to combat the after-effects of this disease, which isolates, disfigures and threatens the lives of the children who suffer from it. Sali was treated in January 2023, during a mission led by Prof. Narcisse Zwetyeanga, head of the maxillofacial surgery department at Dijon University Hospital and a recognized Noma specialist. Today, the little girl can eat normally, go to school and play with other children her age. During this mission, thanks to your donations, 75 other vulnerable patients were able to benefit from surgery, including 41 children, who then discovered their most beautiful smile.

Sali suffered from noma, a worldwide scourge

Sali, 8, lives with her mother and siblings in Nouna, Burkina Faso, a village over 200 kilometers from the capital Ouagadougou.

At the age of one, the little girl suffered a sore on her lower lip that had grown over time.

Sali suffers from noma. Oral and dental diseases, including noma, are classified as the world’s 4th leading disease by the WHO, after malaria, AIDS and cardiovascular disease. Every year, noma affects 500,000 children worldwide. This pathology devours children’s faces, destroying tissues, muscles and bones in the mouth. Only surgery can repair this terrible devastation: bone grafts, skin grafts, mucous membrane grafts, skin and muscle flaps. This series of operations is the only way to restore the faces of these disfigured children.

For Sali, time is of the essence: without urgent action, noma will continue to eat away at her face, risking death from septicemia or dehydration.

A terrible disease that isolates

In Burkina Faso, as in other African countries, noma is regarded as a curse, forcing families with sufferers to isolate themselves from their communities.

To this day, Sali is no longer in school for these reasons. Faced with this situation, her mother is distraught: the girl’s father has died and the family is living in terrible poverty. Sali’s mother has only you to hope for to save her daughter and bring a smile back to her face!

Together we can save Sali

For around 10 years, La Chaîne de l’Espoir has been fighting severe malnutrition, of which noma is a consequence. But thanks to the generosity of our donors, over the past 4 years we have been able to train 2,534 health professionals in prevention and screening, and 494 children have benefited from reconstructive surgery.

Our friend Prof. Narcisse Zwetyenga, head of the maxillofacial surgery department at Dijon University Hospital and a recognized noma specialist, is planning to take his surgical team to Bogodogo University Hospital in Ouagadougou in the near future to operate on some 30 children suffering from noma. With your help, Sali can be put on Professor Zwetyenga’s surgical list.

But for this, we need your help. Despite the voluntary commitment of our caregivers, each operation has an incompressible cost of €500. The entire mission will cost €33,800. This includes operations, care and medication, transport for medical teams, purchase of consumables…

To this day, Sali is no longer in school for these reasons. Faced with this situation, her mother is distraught: the girl’s father has died and the family is living in terrible poverty. Sali’s mother has only you to hope for to save her daughter and bring a smile back to her face!

Thanks to your support, we will be able to give these children, who are often rejected by society, a new chance. Soon, they will be able to go to school, prepare for the future and regain a social life.