- €4.9 million awarded by Horizon Europe to scale a digital health system for maternal and child health in East Africa.
- In 2020, 70% of global maternal deaths occurred in Sub Saharan Africa, this project aims to tackle high maternal and child mortality rates by improving early detection and care for infectious diseases – through better data and digital tools.
- Led by the INFANT Research Centre at University College Cork, the 11-partner consortium includes institutions from Ireland, UK, Norway, and Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
A new digital health project has been awarded €4.9 million funding to help protect mothers and children in East Africa by using smart digital tools to fight infectious diseases and save lives.
A University College Cork (UCC) led project, LINDA-FAMILIA, meaning “Protect the Family” in Swahili, has been funded under the Horizon Europe Programme to revolutionise maternal and child health in East Africa.
Led by the INFANT Research Centre at UCC, the initiative will deploy scalable, interoperable digital health systems to track infectious diseases and support health services in pregnancy, postpartum, and childhood care.
Transforming Maternal and Child Health through Digital Innovation
LINDA-FAMILIA will implement an open source, integrated digital health information system to replace paper-based records in four priority regions: Addis Ababa – Ethiopia, Eastern Province – Rwanda, Kilimanjaro Region – Tanzania, Lango Sub-region – Uganda.
Using the free and open source DHIS2 platform, the world’s largest health information system, the project will integrate 11 World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended Digital Health Interventions (DHIs) to create country specific eRegistries. These systems will capture individual level health data on infectious diseases and vaccinations, enabling improved clinical care, disease surveillance, and public health research, at lower cost than existing systems. DHIS2 is especially suited to the LINDA-FAMILIA project as it is designed for use in low resources settings where internet coverage is unreliable. It makes use of technology freely available in sub-Saharan Africa.
The initiative brings together 11 global partner consortiums from Ireland, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, Norway and the UK and is coordinated by UCC, under the leadership of Ali Khashan, Professor in Perinatal Epidemiology, School of Public Health and INFANT Research Centre at UCC.
Institutional Project Partners
- University College Cork (Ireland)
- Kilimanjaro Clinical Research Institute (Tanzania)
- University of Oslo (Norway)
- Imperial College London
- Eagle Research Centre, Rwanda
- Ethiopian Institute of Public Health (Ethiopia)
- National Institute of Public Health, Uganda
- Norwegian Institute of Public Health
- Stiftelsen Basic Internet, Norway
- Ministry of Health, Tanzania
- Ministry of Health, Rwanda
About the Funder
This project is funded by the Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking, a partnership between the European Commission, representing the European Union, and the EDCTP Association, representing the governments of 15 European and 30 sub-Saharan African countries.