In Africa, 30,000 children have serious heart disease and nearly 1000 children are born each year with congenital heart disease requiring specialized treatment. To address the lack of suitable healthcare for children with heart problems in the region, Servier partnered with various stakeholders to fund the training of local medical and administrative teams of the Dakar Cuomo Cardiopaediatric Centre, which opened in January 2017 in Senegal. The Cuomo Centre not only extends cardiological treatment and heart surgery to children in Senegal, but also throughout West Africa which, up until now, has been totally devoid of this type of facility.

The Senegalese healthcare professionals received six month of comprehensive training in open heart surgery in children, at the Heart Institute in Ho Chi Minh City, a center of excellence in Vietnam and the world. This South-South cooperation allowed the Senegalese team to receive training in a facility which shares similar infrastructure as the Cuomo Centre.

This six-month training resulted in Senegalese teams becoming completely autonomous during their paediatric surgeries. Additionally, administrative teams were trained to manage the Centre with the aim of achieving financial sustainability. Since 2017, nearly 1000 surgeries have been conducted in the Dakar Cuomo Cardiopaediatric Centre on children suffering from cardiac diseases.

The partnership has been renewed until end 2025, to provide additional training to the Senegalese teams regarding surgery on newborns as well as cover the cost of surgeries for less fortunate children. On February 13th 2023, the Cuomo Centre will celebrate its thousandth operation as a result of this partnership.