In August 2018, 17-year-old Isata Biango welcomed her triplets, Sarah, Caleb, and Isaiah Biango, into the world at PIH-supported Wellbody Clinic in Kono, Sierra Leone. The birth was a joy and relief not just for Biango, but also for the midwife and traditional birth attendant who assisted her. The staff met the potential risks Read more…
Spend a day at the Partners In Health-supported J.J. Dossen Hospital in Harper, Liberia—or in the homes and communities the hospital serves—and you’ll find mothers and babies enrolled in a vital program called kangaroo mother care (KMC). Mothers like 22-year-old Cecile Johnson, and babies like her 10-week-old daughter, Sheba Nyemade. Read more…
Posted November 28, 2019. Silvester Dambe said that when he first began visiting Keredonia Wilfred, she was so weak that she declined medicine for her HIV, thinking her recent diagnosis meant she had no chance of living. The senior community health worker gradually convinced her to stay on antiretroviral therapy, Read more…
In Sierra Leone, where extreme poverty means nearly half of families don’t have enough food on a daily basis, children are particularly vulnerable to malnutrition. The consequences of this lack of nutrition are staggering, and long-term. Nearly 40 percent of kids in Sierra Leone have suffered stunting, or impaired growth Read more…
Spend a day at any Partners In Health site and there’s a good chance you’ll hear a phrase you’re unfamiliar with. Perhaps it’s a clunky acronym or polysyllabic drug name. But don’t worry: Keeping up with the ever-evolving world of global health is hard, even for insiders. In Need to Read more…
On a rainy July day in Sierra Leone, children across the country walked to their local schools with pencils in hand, to take their end-of-year exams. If they passed, they would be accepted into the next grade level when school returned in September. As children and young adults all around Read more…
When he first arrived in January 2018 at the mobile malnutrition clinic in Goyavier, near Saint-Marc, Marcellus Adnelson was 12 months old but weighed only 4.9 kg (10 lbs, 13 oz.). He was exceptionally thin, with sunken eyes, rust-coloured hair and an alarmingly small upper arm circumference. The nursing staff Read more…
When 18-year-old Fanta Karoma found out she was pregnant, she was scared. It was her second pregnancy—her first child had been stillborn, after a complicated birth—and it was also bad timing. She was training to become a seamstress in Kono, eastern Sierra Leone, and enjoyed stitching patterns from lapa fabric, Read more…
The rural compound where Agnes Paulo has lived since she was born sits atop a ridge that, in the dry season at this time of year, is dusty and brown. Steps away are downward slopes dotted by agricultural fields, including her family’s. The view across the valley is hazy through Read more…
– By Mark Brender A soft cry comes from inside Agnes Ubaruta’s small mud home in rural southern Kayonza, Rwanda. Aline is awake. Agnes goes inside and comes back carrying her daughter, curled and sleepy, in her arms. Aline is three now and thriving, which is something Agnes couldn’t have Read more…