News archive

A new study from Karolinska Institutet, shows that artificial intelligence (AI) combined with portable digital microscopy improves the detection of intestinal worm infections, so-called soil-transmitted helminth (STH) in resource-limited settings. The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, compared traditional manual microscopy with two AI-based methods for diagnosing soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) in stool samples from schoolchildren in Kenya.

The research group Global Disaster Medicine – Health Needs and Response has been commissioned by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare to monitor and analyse global disasters. This includes providing expert support during crises and serving as a resource for Swedish authorities. A new WHO report, based on data and testimonies from healthcare workers in the field, shows that medical efforts in Gaza during spring have been severely hampered by blockades, attacks, and entry restricttions

The department of Global Public Health, has opened a position for an Assistant Professor in Public Health Sciences to join our dynamic team. We are seeking inspiring, curious, and creative candidates to begin their academic career with us in the field of Public Health Sciences.

For one intensive week in June, 25 high-level professionals and leaders from 21 countries gathered at Kämpasten outside Sigtuna to take part in the masterclass of the Executive Programme in International Politics and Diplomacy for Health, jointly run by Karolinska Institutet and the Stockholm School of Economics. The programme equips professionals with the skills and tools needed to navigate complex political processes for health at the global and regional levels.

Alphonsus Matovu, PhD student at the Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and Global Surgery research group, the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, will defend his thesis "Groin Hernia Surgery in Women. Outputs, Factors, Methods and Costeffectiveness" on June 2, 2025. Main Supervisor is Jenny Löfgren.

A new report by the second Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing , with contributions from Karolinska Institute, shows that adolescents' health globally is at a tipping point. Without targeted action, at least half of the world's adolescents will be at risk of poor health by 2030.

In the autumn of 2025, the training program "A Healthy School Start for Health and Learning" will be launched for the first time. It is aimed at school teams consisting of principals, school nurses, and teachers, offering a structured approach to support families in creating healthy habits.

We had a chat with the course leader Liselotte Schäfer Elinder to gain a deeper insight into the background of the training and what participants can expect.

Helena Nordenstedt is a Senior lecturer and associate professor in global health at GPH and expert coordinator at the Centre for Health Crises. She combines her research with clinical work in internal medicine at Danderyds sjukhus. Her projects range from infectious disease outbreaks to non-communicable diseases like cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, focusing on low-income settings. We asked Helena to share the advantages and challenges of her dual role.

A higher tax on cigarettes in low and middle-income countries can help to reduce child mortality, especially amongst the poorest children, a new study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and published in The Lancet Public Health suggests.

KI Professor Anna Mia Ekström joins the KIB podcast in a conversation about the Face of AIDS Film Archive, the unique film archive documenting the global HIV epidemic 1986-2021. We talk about the importance of the current political landscape in the fight against HIV and AIDS, the results achieved in terms of treatment and the very real risk that these results will be reversed. We talk about the role of documentation and activism: ‘We don't see that today [...] and we know that silence kills.'

Daniel Helldén, researcher at the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institutet, is on the Forbes' 30 under 30 Europe 2025 list in the Science & Healthcare category.

The Global Child Health and Sustainable Development Goals research group recently convened to discuss various health research initiatives in Nigeria. The meeting featured insightful presentations from researchers and PhD students, highlighting critical issues and ongoing research in the realm of child health and medical oxygen service delivery.

KI has awarded this year's Sustainability Prize to Ester Gubi, a doctor and sociologist, and Ann Liljas, associate professor in global public health and assistant lecturer, both at the Department of Global Public Health at KI. They receive the prize for their outstanding contributions to sustainable development. The prize was awarded for the third time and in connection with KI's Sustainability Day on 2 April.

A new study from Karolinska Institutet, published in BMJ Global Health, shows that one in eight patients admitted to hospitals are critically ill, and most of these patients are cared for outside intensive care units. The researchers behind the study believe that simple but underutilised care could save many lives at a low cost.

One in eight patients in hospitals in Africa is critically ill, and one in five of the critically ill die within a week, according to a new study in The Lancet. The researchers behind the largest study of critical illness in Africa to date conclude that many of these lives could have been saved with access to cheap life-saving treatments.

Six out of every ten people in the world lack access to safe medical oxygen which is contributing to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths each year and reducing the quality of life for millions more, according to a new report published in The Lancet Global Health.

Stockholm Trio (Karolinska Institutet, KTH Royal Institute of Technology & Stockholm University) and University College London (UCL) invite you to express interest in two days of workshops in London, the 8-9 April 2025.

Professor Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam and her research group have been awarded a Proof of Concept grant by the European Research Council (ERC) to investigate how vaccines can be adapted to genetic variations in people around the world. Their research paves the way for more effective protection against disease on a global scale.

With the new EU-funded grant, Sezgin team seeks to examine the virus-host interaction of Marburg virus (MARV) and establish a blueprint for the targeted development of antiviral strategies for newly emerging viruses.

On 20 January, a new group of participants gathered at Karolinska Institutet (KI) for the first lesson in a slightly different course. The participants are all potential future medical humanitarian aid workers and will be taking the course this spring. It will prepare them for future work in health crises, disasters and low-resource areas.

Last month, Karolinska Institutet launched the first-ever Sustainable Health and the 2030 Agenda PhD course, organized by the Department of Global Public Health (GPH) and the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health (CESH). Offered within the framework of the Doctoral Programme in Health Care Science (PUF-V), the course received incredible feedback and enthusiasm from participants. It is now planned to be offered again in Autumn 2025.

Analyses of self-tests for human papillomavirus (HPV) can be used to divide HPV-positive women into three risk groups, according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet and Queen Mary University of London published in PLOS Medicine. This method could be important for enhancing cervical cancer screening.

A delegation from Karolinska Institutet (KI), led by KI President Annika Östman Wernerson, travelled to Uganda and Rwanda in November 2024. The delegation visited Makerere University in Uganda and met with representatives from the University of Rwanda and the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda, emphasizing Karolinska Institutet’s commitment to global collaborations, which rely on strong relationships, contextual knowledge, and robust infrastructure.

In November, Anna Mia Ekström was invited as one of the few external advisors to the Africa CDC’s Continental Research Prioritization Framework Workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The workshop aimed to validate a comprehensive set of tools and frameworks designed to enhance health research, identify priority diseases, map research capacities, establish ethical guidelines, and improve governance and coordination of health research across Africa.

Professor Eleni Aklillu, GH-Pharma research group leader at the Department of Global Public Health, is leading the coordination of the EU MAV+ project in Rwanda. Sweden is part of the Team Europe initiative with a total budget of €10 million, managed by Sida.

The first annual consortium meeting of the BREEDIME project was recently held in Zanzibar, attracting around 40 participants. Over the two-day event, attendees discussed project milestones, achievements, challenges, and future plans.

Makerere University in Uganda and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have been collaborating for nearly 25 years. On November 11th 2024 they celebrated their successful partnership during an alumni event at Makerere University's College of Health Sciences in Kampala, Uganda. The event highlighted their achievements, including a joint doctoral program that has supported nearly 50 Makerere doctoral students, many earning double degrees, and the publication of over 500 peer-reviewed articles.

Tobias Alfven attended session on COP29 in Azerbaijan focusing health and climate action, to present a report on the effects of climate change on child health and well-being. The session emphasized the urgent need to recognize the climate crisis as a health crisis, particularly for children, who are disproportionately affected due to their unique vulnerabilities from pregnancy through adolescence

For three days 1 300 EMTs, researchers, health professionals, country delegates and others representing 130 countries gathered in Abu Dhabi for the World Health Organization’s Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) Global Meeting 2024. Members of the research group Global Disaster Medicine – Health Needs and Response, at the Department of Global Public Health at KI, attended the meeting and presented their work to build the EMT global network.

Through the research group Global Disaster Medicine - Health Needs and Responses, KI is one of three universities that are part of the Erasmus Mundus Master's programme Public Health in Disasters. The programme is a unique degree in public health in disasters, that provides students with both practical and theoretical knowledge of public health, health care in disasters and global health care and health systems.

The Global Child Health and Sustainable Development Goals research group recently hosted a delegation of prominent guests from Shanghai, China, to exchange insights on health economics and childcare systems. Their visit aimed to deepen the understanding of the Swedish healthcare system, particularly in the context of children’s health.

Northern Nigeria has one of the highest mortality rates for children globally – in Jigawa, 1 in 6 children still die before their 5th birthday. The INSPIRING trial aimed to reduce child mortality with a package of interventions focused on participatory approaches to capacity building and empowerment.

For three days, the classrooms in the Widerströmska building were particularly buzzing, when the research group Global Disaster Medicine conducted their course ‘Disaster Medicine - Health Care Response to Major Injuries, Health Crises and Disasters’ for specialist doctors. The research group has been running the course since 2018, but this was the first time it was held at Widerströmska.

In September, the Department of Global Public Health and the research group Global Child Health and the Sustainable Development Goals, were visited by a delegation of eight medical doctors and researchers from Indonesia. The visit was the beginning of a four-year long collaboration on a PhD twinning arrangement and research on critical care, supported by Carl Bennet AB.

A new study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), with contribution from Karolinska Institutet, has revealed that one in three cases of oral cancer globally is linked to smokeless tobacco and areca nut use.

Every year in October, when the recipients of the Nobel Prizes are announced, the Nobel Prize Museum organizes events and meetings in collaboration with, among others, Karolinska Institutet. This year Professor Tobias Alfvén from the Department of Global Public Health teamed up with Secretary General of UNICEF Sweden Pernilla Baralt for a seminar about vaccination.

Johan von Schreeb, professor of Global Disaster Medicine at Karolinska Institutet, is awarded the KTH Great Prize 2024 "for his efforts to reduce suffering in the world".

Karolinska Institutet (KI) is renewing its educational collaboration with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and will soon launch two new courses. The courses are possible thanks to support from The Kamprad Family Foundation. The focus is on courses that provide participants with the skills and tools they need to work with healthcare interventions in low-resource contexts, humanitarian disasters and health crises, both globally and locally.

Researchers found that a medicine called ferric carboxymaltose given in drip through the vein works faster and better than an iron tablet taken by mouth for the treatment of anaemia – and it is as safe as the tablet. The findings were published in Lancet Global Health.

Generation Pep wants all children and young people in Sweden to have the opportunity and desire to live an active and healthy life. They collaborate with established knowledge partners, including Karolinska Institutet. Generation Pep now presents the online training programme My Best Day, developed in collaboration with researchers at KI and others, with the aim of improving young people's health.

The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) will be teaming up with specialists from KI again this year for a vaccinology course aimed at healthcare professionals and researchers from around the world. The course also now forms part of doctoral education at KI.

Heatwaves in sub-Saharan Africa are predicted to become more common due to climate change. A new study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and others, published in Nature Medicine, reveals a worrying correlation between high temperatures in the final week of pregnancy and an increased risk of stillbirth and early neonatal mortality.

The Annual PREGART Project Consortium meeting took place from August 5-6, 2024, at Haile Resort in Hawassa City, Ethiopia. The event brought together over 60 participants, including consortium members, government stakeholders, and representatives from the Ministry of Health, the Ethiopian Food and Drug Authority, and partner organizations. Attendees gathered to review the project’s progress, share insights, and outline plans for the year ahead.

A new project RER-CTO (Regulatory and Ethics Readiness for Clinical Trials Oversight) aimed at achieving excellence and harmonization in clinical trial oversight across sub-Saharan Africa has been launched, backed by nearly 1 million euros in funding from the Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking.

Abbie Barry is a public health specialist and project manager with extensive expertise in pharmacovigilance, public health epidemiology, and disease control. She currently works as a consultant for the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa, where she focuses on conducting desk research and epidemiological analysis to identify strategic investment areas and develop targeted interventions aimed at reducing the disease burden across the African continent.

The Rwanda Clinical Trial Capacity Strengthening Team has visited Addis Ababa University. The team included members from the University of Rwanda, Rwanda Biomedical Center, and Rwanda FDA. The purpose of the visit was to learn how The Centre for Innovative Drug Development and Therapeutic Trials for Africa (CDT-Africa) set up a clinical trial training program. The visit was facilitated by Professor Eleni Aklillu from Karolinska Institutet and Professor Eyasu Makonnen from CDT Africa.

Epidemiologist Moa Herrgård has spent six months seconded to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Regional Centre for Health Emergencies in Amman, Jordan. The overall focus of her work has been to enhance health emergency preparedness and response in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East Region. Looking back, she thinks the secondment has taught her a lot that will benefit work at KI.

Unicef is launching a report written by two KI researchers that describes the devastating consequences of climate change for children's health globally. The report summarises research from the field and over 30 experts. It identifies the six main climate hazards and shows that they pose a serious threat to children's health and well-being.

Research published in the Lancet Global Health describes the crucial role that pulse oximeters have in risk-stratification in both hospital and primary care or outpatient settings. Carina King, Associate Professor at the Department of Global Public Health has had a leading role in the newly published viewpoint.

This week, Karolinska Institutet, reached an agreement on a new exciting multiyear partnership with Carl Bennet AB in support of academic collaboration between Karolinska Institutet and Universitas Airlangga in Surabaya, Indonesia. President Annika Östman Wernerson signed the agreement with Carl Bennet outlining a four year program, totalling 8 million Swedish kronor.