Feature Stories

Thiès, Senegal, In the operating room, the regular beep of machines confirms the good news: the “patient”, tested positive for COVID-19 and having just undergone an emergency Cesarean section, is fine. Everyone can breathe easier: the simulation exercise is a success. The fake patient sits up, the doctor reviews the proceedings with those present, and the observers put away their evaluation forms. 

Lomé – Three years ago, Massalou Tchonda, a midwife at the Tsévié Polyclinic near the Togolese capital of Lomé, was attending to a patient expecting twins.

“After the first one came out, the second seemed to be blocked by the placenta. I was convinced the patient wouldn’t be able to give birth on her own,” she recalls. Just as she was hurriedly preparing to perform an emergency evacuation procedure, the other baby’s head appeared. Seconds later, he was out in the world.

Conakry – When Rama learned that she was pregnant, her joy soon gave way to a wrenching anxiety that remained until the moment of delivery: she discovered at the same time that she was HIV-positive and wanted only for her child to be born free of the virus.

“My daughter was born with HIV. I couldn’t protect her because I wasn’t aware of my status prior to my pregnancy,” said the 38-year-old mother of two. “In the case of my second child the doctor explained that it was entirely possible to have a healthy, HIV-negative child if one takes medicine faithfully.”

Luanda – Joana Domingos had long ceased to believe the official COVID-19 information coming from national authorities in her native Angola.

The mother of two had become convinced that the COVID-19 vaccine was part of a global plan to annihilate the most vulnerable – disinformation she had gleaned from messages circulated through mobile phone texts.