Thank you Jackaroodave.
One thing about the colonials is that they established hospitals and clinics. The TB centre in Abidjan is large and very effective in diagnosing and treating the disease. The trouble is, it was originally set up to treat any French who became ill, and one has to pay in order to use its services. We pay for Ramatou's treatment, but if we weren't around, the illness would just progress until she died. (as have several of my husband's old schoolmates)
It would seem that the whites were principally interested in keeping the locals free from infectious diseases they themselves didn't want to catch!