The Center for Global Health of Zhejiang University (ZJU) has been engaged in several health projects in Mali and Senegal since its inception.

Chinese Medical Aid in Mali:

China has been sending medical teams to Africa since 1963. Chinese Medical Teams (CMT) are currently working in 42 African countries, constituting a significant component of Chinese health aid. Mali has hosted Chinese medical teams on a continuous basis since 1968.  From 2011, Chinese team in Mali has been based at the Hospital du Mali in Bamako, built by the Chinese. A team member of Zhejiang University students and researchers have studied how the CMT functioned in Mali, how their role was perceived by locals, and the effectiveness of the CMTs. 

The ZJU team conducted ethnographic observations in the hospital along with in-depth semi-structured interviews with Malian doctors and nurses, all the members of the CMT, and key stakeholders and patients.

Family planning in Mali and Senegal:

Mali has the third highest fertility rate in the world (with a fertility rate of 6.1 children per woman) and a contraceptive prevalence rate of only 10%.  Neighbouring Senegal has one of the lowest fertility rates in the region (with a TFR of 4.2 children per woman) and a contraceptive prevalence rate of 23.3% (2015).

To understand the reasons for the vast differences in family planning outcomes between these two countries, the ZJU team conducted a cross sectional study using a self-administered questionnaire and  semi-structured interviews of more than 1000 informants in urban and rural areas in Mali and Senegal.

The global health fellow Project:

The Center for Global Health received funding from the China Medical Board  in order to build capacity of young Chinese professionals to be global health fellows.

As part of this fellowship, three Chinese PhD students conducted research in Mali. Global Health Fellows worked alongside their Malian colleagues from the University of Science, Technique and Technologies of Bamako (USTT-B). Together the teams conducted two projects. The Adolescent Mental Health Project was a quantitative study that was concerned with developing research tools to investigate adolescent mental health in Mali. The Antimicrobial project is a mixed-methods study concerned with the knowledge of, practice and use of antibiotics among students; physicians; patients; and in retail pharmacies.