A mother from a working-class district of Abidjan watches fearfully while the physiotherapist presses down on the thorax and abdomen of her crying, struggling baby to help him breathe. Under the health worker's expert hands, the infant gradually expels the secretions clogging up his lungs through his nose and mouth.
His mother looks astonished and the therapist keeps working until her child's airways are completely clear. Respiratory physiotherapy is critically needed in Ivory Coast where pneumonia is second only to malaria as a killer of babies and toddlers. The charity Agis Association Graine d'Ivoire et Sante , founded in by Aboubakar Sylla, a physiotherapist himself, trains volunteer staff in the massage techniques to serve the poorer neighbourhoods of the commercial capital and towns in the interior of the west African country.
Their work is linked in with medical consultations and "schools for mothers", where women are taught how to help keep their little ones safe from infection and to treat them if they fall sick. In Ivory Coast, such infections are estimated to have killed more than 11, youngsters in , according to the latest available count.
The Annual Report on the Health Situation RASS for and meanwhile showed that the number of acute respiratory infections rose to more than cases per 1, children in from per 1, in Respiratory infections are "the second cause of hospitalisation in paediatric services. After malaria, it's the second cause of mortality" among Ivorian children under five, says Max Valere Itchi, a doctor at CHU of Cocody, one of the main hospitals in Abidjan. In the countryside the death toll has worsened due to a lack of funds and equipment.
Children are usually taken to hospital only when their case is very serious and more difficult to cure, doctors say. Esthetician Monique Zabia has brought two children with her. Three days later, a similar scene takes place in Attecoube, another low-income neighbourhood in Abidjan, where health staff give advice to women as well as treatments to the kids.
