Kampala, June 10, 2026 – HEPS-Uganda, in partnership with HISP Uganda and the CDC Foundation, supported the Ministry of Health to convene a national workshop at Fairway Hotel to launch the integration of Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response (MPDSR) into Uganda’s epidemic life cycle framework.
The workshop brought together national and district stakeholders from Mukono, Kasese, and Kyegegwa to validate tools, establish coordination structures, and build shared understanding of how MPDSR can strengthen epidemic preparedness.
Central to the initiative is the digitization of the BABIES Matrix within the DHIS2 platform, enabling real-time monitoring of perinatal deaths by birthweight and age at death. This innovation will transform mortality reviews into sentinel signals for outbreak detection.
Dr. Richard Mugahi, Commissioner for Reproductive and Child Health- Ministry of Health, highlighted Uganda’s progress in reducing maternal mortality and emphasized the next frontier: embedding MPDSR into epidemic dashboards. “This integration will ensure that maternal and perinatal death reviews not only improve quality of care but also serve as early-warning systems for epidemic events,” he noted.
Key commitments from the workshop included:
- Developing an epidemic life-cycle framework linking MPDSR to surveillance dashboards.
- Rolling out digital registers to lower-level facilities for near-real-time reporting.
- Establishing unique identifiers to reduce duplicate reporting across systems.
- Strengthening capacity of district teams to interpret BABIES matrix outputs.
The initiative positions Uganda as a regional leader in linking maternal health surveillance with epidemic preparedness. By harmonizing data systems and building strong coordination mechanisms, the program aims to save lives while enhancing resilience against future outbreaks.
