“Les Sourires de l’Espoir”: where do we stand?

Since 2014, La Chaîne de l’Espoir has been operating on children suffering from maxillofacial pathologies, a terminology that covers facial tumors, cleft lip and palate and noma. In 2018, with the support of the French Development Agency (AFD) and our donors, this program was enriched to offer a prevention component to complement surgical care. Of course, in keeping with our DNA, this program also incorporates training for paramedical and medical teams who can now operate on their own. State of the art.

Diseases with a 90% mortality rate

Poorly understood by the local population and medical staff, facial pathologies and malformations have a mortality rate of 90% in the case of noma. Beyond this considerable percentage and their immediately visible consequences, these diseases also feed local superstitions. Sick children are often stigmatized, socially excluded, excluded from school and even rejected by their families and communities.

Echoing this terrible reality, which combines health and social issues, La Chaîne de l’Espoir has been operating on children suffering from these pathologies for almost 10 years, offering a global approach for maximum effectiveness.

A global program to empower local teams

Through its program of prevention and integrated care for children suffering from noma, cleft lip, facial tumors, etc., La Chaîne de l’Espoir has been able to achieve the following objectives in Mali and Burkina Faso:

• Mobilize healthcare staff and civil society players by raising awareness and training them in the specific features of noma and other maxillofacial pathologies,
• Raise awareness among the population in target areas, as well as traditional and religious leaders, of the means of prevention, causes and detection of noma and maxillofacial pathologies,
• Detect, treat and operate on patients suffering from facial pathologies and malformations by training local medical and paramedical teams.

This comprehensive approach has proved its worth, enabling hundreds of people to benefit from a medical consultation and/or surgical management. Thus since 2018:

• 11 medical-surgical missions took place,
• 1,211 people received a consultation,
• 684 people were cared for.

Before the end of 2023, 2 new surgical missions will take place in Burkina Faso to operate on sick children and continue training local teams. Each mission will cost an average of €70,000 and will enable some 50 children to be operated on.

Average cost of caring for a child :

What are the prospects for “Les Sourires de l’Espoir” in 2024?

La Chaîne de l’Espoir’s actions are aimed at helpinglocal medical teams to become self-sufficient, rather than maintaining a situation of perpetual assistance. Consequently, and in view of the expertise acquired by the Malian and Burkina Faso teams, our action will continue in 2024 through :

• 2 missions to Burkina Faso to operate on a hundred children at a total cost of 140,000 euros,
• the financing of 60 surgical packages in Mali, representing a total of 66,000 euros.

And thanks to 50,000 euros in funding from the AFD, we will be carrying out an exploratory maxillofacial surgery mission in 6 African countries (possibly Senegal, Togo, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of Congo). Objective: to study the feasibility of developing our program for the prevention and integrated management of maxillofacial pathologies and noma in 3 priority countries, based on the local context and needs for this specific public health issue.