Mulago Specialised Women and Neonatal Hospital has delivered its second baby conceived through in vitro fertilisation (IVF), marking another small but significant step in the country’s efforts to make fertility care more accessible.
The baby girl, weighing 3.6 kilograms, was born at the facility in Kampala — Uganda’s only public hospital currently offering IVF. Her parents, Salim Malinga and Sayeed Rukusana, are among the growing number of Ugandan couples turning to assisted reproductive technologies for help with infertility.
“This is a milestone worth celebrating,” said Dr. Diana Atwine, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Health. In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday, she wrote, “Our team at Mulago Specialised Women and Neonatal Hospital has successfully delivered its second baby conceived through In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF).”
She added: “The hospital began offering IVF services in August 2024, and we are thrilled to report 11 confirmed pregnancies so far.”
For a country where infertility has long been a silent struggle, the delivery is being hailed as a breakthrough in public health. The hospital announced the news on its own X account, calling it “a milestone in affordable, public fertility care, bringing renewed hope to families facing fertility challenges.”
IVF — a process in which an egg and sperm are combined outside the body and then implanted in the uterus — is typically only used when other fertility treatments have failed. For many Ugandans, however, IVF has remained completely out of reach due to its cost. Private fertility clinics often charge between 15 million and 40 million shillings per cycle.
Mulago’s program is the first of its kind in a public facility.
Dr. Sam Ononge, the acting hospital administrator, said the IVF program began just last year.
“The facility officially opened in 2018,” he told reporters during a press briefing, “but it was only in August 2024 that we started offering IVF. Since then, we’ve had 11 pregnancies through this approach, and two of them have now resulted in successful deliveries.”
The first IVF baby was born on May 31, 2025.
In Uganda, infertility affects an estimated one in four couples — a figure that often masks deeper social costs. Women, in particular, bear the burden. Many face blame or even abandonment when pregnancies don’t happen, despite infertility affecting men and women nearly equally.
For families like Malinga and Rukusana’s, the program at Mulago is more than a service — it’s a lifeline.
And with each successful birth, it seems, the stigma begins to shift.
