Ivory Coast – Targeted Free Healthcare in Public Hospitals: A Program to Support Vulnerable Populations

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The targeted free healthcare program is now a reality for children aged 0 to 5 suffering from malaria and for pregnant women.

Salimata Coulibaly takes her 3-and-a-half-year-old daughter, who is ill, to the urban health center of Dimbékaha, in the Katiola district. The child has malaria. From diagnosis to medication, Salimata didn’t spend a single franc.
“The doctors did blood tests, gave me malaria medication, and even an insecticide-treated mosquito net,” she says.

In the country’s public hospitals, the targeted free healthcare program is a reality for children aged 0 to 5 suffering from malaria and for pregnant women.
“My wife gave birth at this health center free of charge. The free care is a real relief for us,” says Hervé Coulibaly.

The targeted free healthcare program aims to provide specific medical procedures, services, and care for pregnant women—including prenatal and postnatal consultations, childbirth and related complications—as well as for children aged 0 to 5 suffering from malaria, anemia, acute respiratory infections, and diarrheal diseases.

Thanks to the Government’s Social Program (PSGouv2), from 2023 to June 2024, 507,949 malaria cases were treated free of charge among pregnant women, and 4,096,400 malaria cases were treated in children aged 0 to 5 across the entire national territory.