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This paper critically reviews an experience of health cooperation in an hospital of a rural area of Ivory Coast. This particular situation is analysed in the more general frame of health problems in low-income countries and may suggest priorities for international health cooperation. The analysis of the main causes of avoidable death in poor countries does indicate targets and tools of intervention. In this case, the target was the reduction of infant mortality from anaemia of different origin and from HIV-1 mother-to-infant transmission. The major tool for intervention was the partnership between an Italian teaching and research hospital and the African hospital, with the catalyst of a non-governmental organisation. This paper analyses the different levels at which cooperation developed in this project, from sheer economic support to the implementation of disease-oriented twinning programs that can improve health care and strengthen research capacity on both sides. Besides, medical, ethical and social implications of the ongoing cooperation program are discussed, with particular reference to the problems of preventing mortality from severe anaemia (diet fortification in children and pregnancy and transfusional guidelines in severe malaria) and of preventing mother-to-child neonatal transmission of HIV-1 infection (counselling and testing pregnant women for HIV-1, nevirapine administering to the mother and the baby and breast-feeding).