"Saving a child's life is the most important thing to do"

So says Dr Stefan Einhorn as an explanation to why he wants to support Shifos vaccination program in Mukono, Uganda. He has visited one of the first community health centers that have introduced the system before he gave his support to MyChild System.

Stefan Einhorn is Professor of Molecular Oncology at Karolinska Institutet and senior physician at the oncological clinic. He is also an author and became known to a wider public with the books “The art of Being Kind” and “Fellow Human Beings”, and later through his novels “Response of the angels” and “The Stone Tree”. What is less known is that he is also a philanthropist and supports a number of projects in low-income countries through the Einhorn Family Foundation.

The Foundation supports both short and long term projects in Africa, among others in Uganda, Zanzibar, Congo and Tanzania. This involves projects that do specific actions and projects that are knowledge-building, but above all projects that are well researched to provide evidence of its impact. Einhorn emphasizes the importance of knowing that the supported projects will produce results and impact –meaning improved health and reduced child mortality.

“We always follow up large projects on the ground. It is also a way to find motivation for yourself. It is important that you can really see the kids,” says Stefan Einhorn.

It was on one such trip to one of the projects the foundation supports in Uganda that Stefan Einhorn also visited one of the three health centers already using Shifo’s MyChild System. The operation had only been running for a few weeks, but Stefan Einhorn was impressed by what he saw.

“I went to Uganda with an open mind, and think that the vaccination program is a very good project. In Uganda about 10% of all children die before age of 5, often in "unnecessary" infectious diseases, so this can save lives,” Stefan Einhorn tells.

In Uganda, only about half of the children under the age of five are fully vaccinated against the most common fatal childhood diseases. With Shifo’s MyChild System all children can be registered at birth or at the first contact with the health services, and given a unique patient ID number. Using this system, the child's development can be monitored and the individual vaccination plan followed up to ensure that the child completes the program. By providing child drop-out data and identifying children who missed out on vital vaccinations, health staff can reach them through the health centers and outreach services in the villages.

“This is a good project because there is a need for a joint system. The aim should be to achieve a system that provides nearly 100% vaccination rate. And I believe that the MyChild System could fill that need,” Einhorn underlines.

On site at the health center, Stefan Einhorn got acquainted with both the vaccination program and the new patient record system. He found that the employees were very enthusiastic, although immunization nurses were not yet completely comfortable using the computers. This is to be expected when most of them had never used a computer before the system was implemented about a month ago. However, he was pleasantly surprised when he realized how many people have mobile phones.

“This is not a large sum Shifo received; we did not have much money to hand out at this time. But it is symbolic to show that we stand by this project,” Einhorn explains.

Stefan Einhorn obviously wants the vaccination project to be a success, and therefore argues that it is important to cover a large enough area with the MyChild System because people move about. Ideally, there should be a system that covers the entire country, or at least ensure that it covers a region.

“I am most concerned that the vaccination project will not be followed up properly. Research needs to show that the vaccination rate actually increases. If you can’t show the actual health impact the project will not reach its potential,” concludes Stefan Einhorn.

Interview by: Jannecke Schulman, J Schulman Kommunikation