How One Community Brought Child Mortality Down From 154 to 7 Per 1,000 Live Births
A 7-year trial in Mali provided house calls and health care at no charge for pregnant women and young children. The results inspired the president to make a bold pronouncement.
Imagine a world in which pregnant women and little kids get regular home visits from a health worker — and free health care.
That's the ground-breaking approach that's being adopted in one of the world's poorest countries: the West African nation of Mali.
And it's already underway in a pilot program. Nana Kadidia Diawara is one of many community health workers who do daily rounds through the sprawling, dusty streets of Yirimadio, a neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital city of Bamako.
Wearing a bright blue and white print dress and matching hat, she carries a large green rucksack full of medical equipment like syringes and bandages.
"I know everyone in my area, and it's a system that works very well," she says, while measuring
