Basic HTML Version
One of these countries is Malawi. Jon
Øyvind Odland, a professor of Com-
munity Medicine at the University of
Tromsø, has been one of the initiators of
a project designed to reduce child morta-
lity in that country.
"When we started the project there was
only one gynaecologist at the hospital.
With 12 000 births a year at the hospital,
there was a huge demand for trained
personnel," he said.
Must give birth on the floor
The effort is a joint project among the
three university hospitals in Oslo, Bergen
and Tromsø, and the Bwaila public hos-
pital in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi.
Northern initiative
saves babies in Malawi
Child mortality is one of the major health challenges facing developing
countries. While in 2008, the risk that a Norwegian child would die before
the age of five was four per thousand, the risk for children in many African
countries south of the Sahara is more than ten per cent.
18
•••
Labyrint E/11
– University of Tromsø
A newborn baby in Malawi. Photo: Gideon Mendel/ActionAid/Corbis