"All of my children die before the age of 5"

First of all, I would like to let everyone know that Mali is a good place to have a birthday!  I started the morning with Sheri MacLean's homemade cinnamon buns and then over to the hospital to play with some of the kids and to look at some slides in the lab.

This post will hopefully shed some light on the importance of sickle cell screening in Mali.  The common history that the medical team gets with a new child with sickle cell disease is that multiple children (historically) have died in that family before the age of 5.  We are hoping to change that course moving forward by screening and providing proper treatment.

This beautiful little girl's mother died from sickle cell disease and she now lives with her aunt.  Her father lives in the capital city (Bamako) and does not typically comply with the plan from the medical team.

 This little boy's brother was screened as an infant and tested positive for SCD.  His older brother then tested positive and is now followed in the screening program.

 Brothers with SCD.  The father is wealthy but refuses to fund the needed therapy for treatment and prevention.  We will continue to provide the treatment for free and hope to convince him of why it is necessary in the future.

 This little girl with club feet was in for some fine tuning of her brace.  You can tell that she is wearing at home by the way that she was falling asleep during the process.

 Jo with Karie.... if you look at her dossier (chart) below you can see that 3 of 8 children have died at a young age from likely complications of undiagnosed SCD.  Karie is now getting the treatment that she needs with the hope of limited complications in the future.

 The chart of Yacouba (above) shows that 6 out 9 children have died under the age of 5 (noted as DCD).  Yacouba was the first child discovered to have SCD.

This little girl has the worst anemia out of all the children that were seen in the program today.  She lives in Segou (several hours away) and therefore has not yet been started on the controlling medicine hydroxyurea.  We hope that the family will think about moving her closer to Koutiala so that she can receive the care that she so desperately needs.