Inteleos Foundation Announces 2026 MedMissions Award to Advance Maternal Health Ultrasound Access in Five Africa Nations

The Inteleos Foundation today announced five recipients of its 2026 MedMissions Award, supporting maternal health ultrasound access in Malawi, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Uganda, and Côte d’Ivoire.

The annual award advances locally led nonprofit initiatives that expand point-of-care ultrasound training, strengthen referral pathways, and improve care for high-risk pregnancies in resource-limited settings.

In its eighth year of operation, the MedMissions Award confronts one of global health's most urgent crises — 5 billion people without access to medical imaging — building the evidence base and partnerships needed to make ultrasound accessible to all.

2026 MedMissions Award Recipients

This year, the Foundation has selected the following nonprofit organizations to drive locally-led maternal health interventions in five nations:

GAIA Global Health: Expanding access to quality obstetric ultrasound services to support safer pregnancies and deliveries in rural communities in Malawi.

Seed Global Health: Expanding point-of-care ultrasound training and services to strengthen maternal and newborn care in health facilities across Sierra Leone.

Kenyatta University: Deploying ultrasound to improve early detection and referral for high-risk pregnancies in remote informal settlements of Nairobi County, Kenya.

Babies and Mothers Alive Foundation: Improving the quality of obstetric care by integrating point-of-care ultrasound into routine antenatal practice in health facilities in Uganda’s Greater Masaka region.

Muso: Enhancing ultrasound capacity for frontline providers to improve obstetric and perinatal outcomes in Côte d’Ivoire.

Building Capacity Through Partnerships

The MedMissions Award establishes a consortium of health-focused organizations and local Ministries of Health to advance point-of-care ultrasound training and referral pathways for frontline health workers in remote communities across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Selected awardees will use an outcomes-based approach to evaluate patient health outcomes, ultrasound utilization, and community adoption. These partnerships are designed to help translate field-level evidence into national policy, long-term workforce capacity, and more sustainable health system integration.

Driving Sustainable Impact

For the Inteleos Foundation, these interventions will establish critical infrastructure and replicable education models that will drive universal access to medical imaging for health providers and their patients.