Health
Next step for the fruitful collaboration between Makerere University and KI
One of KI’s largest international collaborations is with Makerere University in Uganda. In time for Makerere’s 100th anniversary, the partnership is to manifest itself in a Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health. A delegation from KI travelled in May to Uganda to cement the relationship.
“The foundation of a virtual centre for sustainable health gives us a totally new way to build international collaborations,” says KI president, Ole Petter Ottersen. “Mutuality and far-sightedness will pervade all our projects with the aim of improving health for all. The centre will enable more international collaborations, not just in Uganda but also with more countries in Africa, such as Somalia, and other parts of the world. In today’s turbulent world, it is especially important to work on a global stage and stand up for responsible internationalisation.”
From research to extensive collaboration
The partnership between Makerere University and Karolinska Institutet was established back in 2000. At first it was mainly focused on research, but it was soon extended to everything from student and teacher exchanges to joint doctoral studies. There is now a related alumni network containing hundreds of researchers and healthcare workers in Sweden and Uganda.
One of the students who was quick to snap up the chance to change their study environment from Makerere University to Karolinska Institutet was Noeline Nakasujja. Today, she is a practising psychiatrist and departmental head at the Department of Psychiatry at the College of Health Sciences, Makerere University.
“I spent a month in Stockholm in 2005, which was a real eye-opening experience,” she says. “It opened a window onto our cultural differences and onto the differences in resources between universities. It made me realise how much we can achieve even with limited resources.”
Since the exchange programme began, some 300 students and teachers have participated.
“During my time in Sweden, I almost immediately saw a clear difference in student-teacher relations,” she continues. “We have a much more marked hierarchy. At Karolinska Institutet, I saw how it was even possible to have a more relaxed relationship without compromising the seriousness of the teaching.”
After her exchange, Noeline Nakasujja also took the opportunity to take a joint PhD at KI and Makerere.
“My time as a doctoral student led to me receiving a doctoral student from KI,” she says. “That personal contact was the key to creating a platform that has enabled others to successfully navigate a foreign university.”
Since then, Noeline Nakasujja and her department have accepted numerous students from KI, and she finds her first-hand experience of the Swedish study environment comes in very useful here. She now believes that the new Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health can deepen the relationship between the two universities even more.
“We need to strengthen the preventative work we’re doing in Ugandan healthcare,” she says. “Patients with Alzheimer’s can particularly benefit from early intervention, such as physical exercise and social activities that help to slow the onset of disease.”
She goes on: “The only way to create truly sustainable health and social care services is by breaking the circle and offering prophylactic intervention.”
There are several partners attached to the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health, including universities in Congo, Somalia, Kenya, Malawi and Ethiopia.
“The collaboration enables us to create an environment for the exchange of knowledge and experience that will have a knock-on effect on other international partnerships,” she explains.
Innovation developed in Uganda now implemented in Sweden
Susanne Guidetti, professor of occupational therapy at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society has been involved in developing student and teacher exchanges between Makerere and KI since 2004. Back then, she had just come home from having lived with her family in Nairobi for a few years and was put straight in touch with Julius Kamwesiga, an affiliate of Makerere University.
The studies were conducted with Mulago National Specialised Hospital and gave the participants access to daily exercise with the help of their mobile phones. Stroke awareness is low in Uganda, where most people live in remote areas far from the nearest clinic.
“When we can work together to offer more people stroke rehabilitation, we give them a real possibility to live a better life,” Guidetti says. “After the project, one of the participants came up to me and said: ‘The surgeon helped me survive, but my contacts with the occupational therapist made life worth living again’.”
The study will now undergo a larger-scale follow-up in Uganda, and its findings have prompted further studies in Sweden.
“What made our study unique was that we brought knowledge and experience from Uganda to Sweden. Here, our innovation will make it possible to help stroke patients in remote parts of Sweden, too,” she says. “There are now several mobile phone-based rehab options, but in Uganda we helped to pioneer the technique.”
Today, Guidetti has an important part to play in the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health.
“Our project is a good example of how we can create an equivalent platform for sharing knowledge. Hopefully, we’ll be able to develop it further at the Centre and take new steps together towards sustainable health.”
The Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health enables not only the sharing of knowledge and experiences, but also the development and spread of innovations that can bring the goal of sustainable global health closer to being achieved. The knowledge and the network that the centre possesses make it easier for us to take on today’s pressing societal challenges together, not only in Sweden and Uganda but globally, too.
“We have an incredible amount to learn from each other,” says Professor Ottersen. “Let us be inspired by each other’s solutions, big and small, and together find more ways to tackle global health challenges. With the founding of the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health, our partnership takes the step from aid funding to being a true partner-driven collaboration.”
Health experts from across Africa have called for stronger use of routine health data in planning, supervision and service delivery, noting that although countries are generating large amounts of health information, much of it is still not being used.
The call came during a webinar hosted by the Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH) in partnership with The Global Fund under the theme “From National Dashboards to District Action: Strengthening Subnational Data Use for Planning, Supervision and Service Delivery.”
The webinar brought together health information specialists, policymakers and practitioners from Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia to share experiences and lessons on using subnational data for evidence based decision making.
Kenya’s journey from data collection to action
In her keynote address, Dr Helen Kiarie, Head of the Monitoring and Evaluation Division at Kenya’s Ministry of Health, urged health practitioners and policymakers to move beyond routine reporting and use data to improve health outcomes.
“The bottleneck is no longer collecting data. It is turning routine data into decisions and decisions into action,” Dr Kiarie said.
Drawing on Kenya’s experience, she pointed to the country’s shift from paper based reporting systems to digital platforms, noting that more than 95% of public health facilities have been digitised.
According to Dr Kiarie, Kenya has developed National Data Analytics Guidelines to support evidence based decision making across the health system. The guidelines set out a structured approach to data analysis, interpretation and dissemination so that the information generated can be used.
She said building a culture of data use requires leadership that asks for evidence, regular performance reviews, public dashboards, mentorship programmes, and the integration of data into planning and budgeting.
Community data improving maternal health
Dr Kiarie gave practical examples of how data can shape health outcomes.
In Kwale County, community health promoters used household level data to identify and follow up pregnant women, encouraging them to attend antenatal care services and deliver at health facilities.
As a result, skilled birth attendance increased from 50 per cent in 2022 to 85 per cent, while reported home deliveries fell from 808 to 248.
She also pointed to Kenya’s efforts to link digital health data with health financing systems, saying better documentation and data quality have strengthened accountability and increased reimbursements to health facilities.
She added that real time maternal and perinatal death surveillance systems are helping health authorities identify gaps in care, assign responsibility and take corrective action to prevent avoidable deaths.
“Data has moved beyond documenting losses to becoming an instrument for preventing the next avoidable death,” Dr Kiarie said.
Addressing data quality challenges
Despite major investments in digital health systems, Dr Kiarie acknowledged that data quality challenges remain.
She cited system downtimes, the parallel use of paper and digital records, limited access to some digital platforms, and resistance to change among some health workers as barriers to data quality and use.
Still, she said Kenya’s data quality has improved considerably through digitisation and continued investment in governance, analytics capacity and quality assurance.
Regional experiences and lessons
The webinar also included a panel discussion with experts from Uganda, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia, who shared experiences on strengthening data use at district and facility level.
The discussion pointed to the importance of strong leadership, timely information, digital infrastructure and feedback mechanisms that help health workers and managers make informed decisions with the data available.
Participants agreed that health information systems should do more than serve as reporting tools. They should also support decision making where services are delivered.
Moving from information to impact
Speaking during the webinar, Prof. Rhoda Wanyenze, Dean of Makerere University School of Public Health (MAKSPH), commended countries for progress in strengthening health information systems and encouraging data use.
She urged practitioners and researchers to go beyond documenting challenges and start capturing examples of how data informed decisions are improving programmes and health outcomes.
“It would be really good for us to dig deeper in terms of what decisions we have actually made and what we would not have known or done differently if we did not have the data,” she said.
In his closing remarks, Dr Wodimu Ayele of The Global Fund said the value of data lies in its ability to improve service delivery, inform decision making and strengthen accountability.
He called on countries to keep investing in data quality, analytics capacity and health information systems, while making sure evidence generated at all levels leads to measurable improvements in health outcomes.
Uganda has released the preliminary findings of the 2025 Uganda Population-Based HIV Impact Assessment (UPHIA 2025), a national household survey that provides a current picture of the country’s HIV response and selected non-communicable disease indicators.
At the Uganda Media Centre today, 1 October 2026, the Minister of Health, Hon. Dr Chris Baryomunsi, released the preliminary results and said the evidence would guide policy, resource allocation and service improvement, with particular attention to people and communities with the greatest gaps. He urged Ugandans to know their HIV status, use prevention services and, when diagnosed, start treatment promptly and adhere to it.
Among adults aged 15 years and above, HIV prevalence was 5.9 percent, including 7.3 percent among women and 4.1 percent among men. Among adults aged 15–64, prevalence was also 5.9 percent, unchanged from 2020/21. Across the country, prevalence ranged from 1.3 percent in Karamoja to 8.0 percent in the South Western region. Of adults living with HIV, 85.3 percent knew their status; 99.1 percent of those aware were on treatment; and 96.5 percent of those on treatment had achieved viral load suppression. HIV-status awareness remains the central gap in the 95-95-95 cascade.
The survey also measured selected non-communicable disease indicators for the first time. Elevated blood pressure affected 15.5 percent of adults, while 24.8 percent had overweight or obesity and 0.9 percent had raised blood glucose.
Conducted from July to September 2025, UPHIA 2025 was the first population-based HIV impact assessment to be fully country-led. The Ministry of Health provided overall leadership, while Makerere University School of Public Health served as the prime implementing organisation, working with UVRI, UBOS, regional referral hospitals and local governments. PEPFAR funded the survey through the U.S. CDC.
Watch the UPHIA 2025 preliminary results launch:
https://www.youtube.com/live/QfHFBaJ-L-w
Read the UPHIA 2025 summary results:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nElGNwgcAcZyAo9CLCQKRpO2jJgyxjSc/view?usp=drive_link
-
General1 week agoCall for Applications: RLRH Graduate Traineeship Programme
-
General2 weeks agoAR Department Bids Farewell to Mr. Ssentongo and Ms. Akoli
-
Natural Sciences1 week agoFrom World’s Worst Water Weed to Worth: Makerere Researchers Turn Water Hyacinth into Valuable Products
-
General2 days agoStatement on Concerns Circulating Regarding a Member of Academic Staff
-
Research1 week agoCall for Makerere Staff PhD Completion Grant Applications, 2026-27