Tobias Alfvén

Tobias Alfvén

Professor/Senior Physician | Deputy Dean
Visiting address: Tomtebodavägen 18A, 17177 Stockholm
Postal address: K9 Global folkhälsa, K9 GPH Alfvén, 171 77 Stockholm
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About me

  • I am a clinical professor of global child health and senior consultant in paediatrics. For the past 25 years, I have combined research, teaching and clinical medicine in paediatrics. Between 2020-2024 I was President of the Swedish Society of Medicine and since 2022 I am President of the Agenda for Health and Prosperity. Furthermore, I have also worked for the United Nations, both in the field and at headquarters. Among many responsibilities while working for UNAIDS in Geneva, I represented the organisation in the UN Expert Group on the Millennium Development Goals.

    At the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institutet, I am the research group leader of the Global Child Health and the Global Goals group and part of the management group. I supervise several PhD students and the group has around 30 research projects ranging from newborn to adolescent health, infectious diseases, technology and innovation and climate change impact on child health.

    I am co-chair of the virtual Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health (CESH), a joint collaboration between Karolinska Institutet and Makerere University in Uganda as well as the co-chair for The Partnership for International Politics and Diplomacy for Health, joint project together with the Stockholm School of Economics,  https://globalhealthdiplomacy.se/.

    At Sachs' Children and Youth Hospital, I work as a paediatrician in the emergency department and lead the research network in global health and infectious diseases. I supervise residents and was awarded the Resident Supervisor of the Year 2020.

Research

  • My research aims to reduce mortality and morbidity among children, with a particular focus on newborns and young children in low- and middle-income countries, as well as in Sweden. The research is conducted in close collaboration with partners in, among others, Uganda, Vietnam, Indonesia, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Somalia, and integrates clinical studies, translational research, epidemiology, health systems research, and implementation science. A central part of my work is supervision and doctoral education. I have served as principal or co-supervisor for a large number of doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers from multiple countries and work actively to build sustainable and inclusive research environments.

    A key focus of my research is the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of common and severe childhood diseases, particularly pneumonia, meningitis, and neonatal morbidity. The work spans laboratory-adjacent and translational studies of novel diagnostic methods and biomarkers, as well as clinical trials and field studies in resource-limited settings, with the aim of enabling rapid and safe implementation in clinical practice. This research has resulted in publications in leading international journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet family, The BMJ, and PLOS Medicine, and has contributed to changes in clinical guidelines and policy recommendations.

    In parallel, I conduct research on how health systems can be strengthened to reach children who are currently excluded from formal healthcare services, including those living in conflict- and crisis-affected settings. This includes studies of healthcare organisation, equitable access to child health services, and how innovations can be scaled up in a sustainable manner.

    In recent years, I have also developed a cross-disciplinary research agenda at the intersection of global child health, sustainable development, and climate change. This work focuses on how climate-related risks affect children’s health and well-being, and how health systems can adapt to meet future global challenges, in close collaboration with international organisations and policymakers.

Teaching

  • I teach global health and global child health at all different levels at Karolinska Institutet, and I am also involved in teaching related to climate change and health, neglected infectious diseases, the Sustainable Development Goals and Sustainable health. Further I teach clinical paeditrics at Sachs' Children and Youth Hospital to medical students and junior colleagues. I am also engaged in educational development related to global and sustainable health and the new medical degree programme at Karolinska Institutet. 

    Selection of my teaching at Karolinska Institutet
    Introductary day for all students at KI
    The patient of the future: Challenges and Possibilities for Local and Global Health (together with Helena Nordenstedt and Lars Frelin)

    Medicine programme
    The disease panorama and the determinants of health in Sweden and globally (1st semester)
    Panel discussion on the future for health care in Sweden (1st semester)
    Paediatric infectious diseases in a global perspective (4th semester)
    The disease panorama in Sweden from a historical and global perspective (11th semester)
    Prevention in practice (seminar 11th semester)

    Master programme in Global Health
    Mother and child health in a global perspective (3GB013)
    Neglected Infectious Diseases

    Master programme in Public Health in disasters
    Global child health - The major killers among children

    Elective course in Sustainable Health and development
    An introduction to Sustainable Health and the Sustainable Development Goals
    Climate change and child health

    Doctoral courses
    Teaching in various doctoral courses, for example in Global Child Health, the Sustainable Development Goals, and Climate Change and Health.
    Participated in developing the doctoral course “Sustainable Health and Development, ” which has been offered since 2024. 
    Keynote speaker at ”Innovation, Impact, and Integrity: Crafting a Fulfilling Research Career”, organised by the Doctoral Student Association of Karolinska Institutet. Talk “Open Science and the Publishing Process”.

    Other
    I often give lectures both outside and within academia, for example annually in recent years in connection with Nobel Calling. Topics have included, for example, Global Health Diplomacy (together with Sweden’s Ambassador for Global Health, Karin Tegmark-Wisell, among others), the History of Childhood Vaccinations (together with UNICEF Sweden’s Secretary-General, Pernilla Baralt), Global Child Health (together with senior pediatrician Grace Ndeezi, Makerere University, Uganda), and Climate Change and Children’s Health (in collaboration with the Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Line Gordon).

Selected publications

Articles

All other publications

Grants

  • European Commission
    1 March 2025 - 31 August 2028
    Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) pose significant global health threats, characterised by high incidence and mortality. However, in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), there is often a lack of accessible diagnostics to guide proper treatment and therapy monitoring. Our objectives are as follows: (1) Develop and validate a two-tier diagnostic toolbox: (a) Implement a Lateral Flow Test (LFT) for detecting urinary biomarkers at primary care for triage
    (b) Deploy a compact, portable Point-of-Care (POC) instrument for secondary care (hospitals, clinics), integrating pathogen detection via isothermal nucleic acid amplification and host-response biomarker quantification for evidence-based therapy and antibiotic prescription
    (c) Introduce novel (self)-sampling cards for transport without the need for a cold chain
    (d) Establish a digital health platform for clinical decision support. (2) Evaluate the toolbox's field deployability, acceptance, usability, and integration into clinical practice. (3) Maximise the adoption, implementation, and accessibility of the proposed diagnostic toolbox. (4) Prepare for post-project regulatory approval and market launch. (5) Enhance capacity building and surveillance structures through local manufacturing transfer and improvement of the supply chain and logistics. We will recruit diverse patient groups, including under-represented segments of society, from various African settings to ensure the broad applicability, sustainability, and customisability of our solutions. This project is expected to have a significant impact, improving the quality of UTI/AMR diagnostics, reducing unnecessary antibiotic use, preventing resistance, strengthening health systems and their response to epidemics, and increasing accessibility and quality of diagnostics through interdisciplinary and robust industrial collaboration.
  • Critical care with a focus on the perinatal period to scale up research, capacity building and implementation at Phu San Hanoi Hospital, Vietnam
    Carl Bennet AB
    1 January 2025 - 31 December 2028
    This project aims to scale up research, capacity building and implementation at Phu San Hospital Vietnam. The following research and training activities in maternal and newborn care are planned for 2025-2028, based on the collaboration to date between the Karolinska Institutet and Vietnam Phu San Hanoi Hospital. including four components. The NeoSpirit SALSA Trial The trial aims to recruit 230 preterm infants in need of surfactant over a period of 2-3 years. This major undertaking will be the first and largest randomized controlled trial (RCT) globally investigating surfactant delivery through a laryngeal mask airway (LMA) to extremely low birth weight infants. The results will be of great importance for the care of premature newborns all over the world. Further, the research project is building capacity in research and clinical care of newborns. PhD twinning program To strengthen the clinical aspects of the trial, support for two Vietnameses PhD candidates Center of Excellence Simulation Lab Expanding the collaboration to include simulation and team training in Vietnam by building a Centre of Excellence Simulation lab at Phu San. The work would move beyond the trials, to other areas of critical care, with focus on newborns and serve as a hub for advanced training, enabling healthcare professionals to hone their skills in a controlled, realistic environment. Celebrating Vietnam – Sweden 50 years of collaboration in health care and health research – a bilateral seminar event in Hanoi including business and health care during 2026.
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2022 - 31 December 2023
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 December 2020 - 31 December 2022
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 December 2020 - 31 December 2022
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2019 - 31 December 2020
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2019 - 31 December 2022
  • Assessing a Supraglottic Device Versus Endotracheal Intubation in Neonatal Resuscitation in Vietnam – a Randomized Phase III Clinical Trial (NEO-SPIRIT)
    Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2019 - 31 December 2022
  • Swedish Research Council for Environment Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning
    1 December 2018 - 29 February 2020
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 November 2017 - 30 November 2017
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2016 - 31 December 2018
  • HoliCare: A holistic approach in patient management and epidemic surveillance through convergence of diagnostic technologies, capacity building and stakeholder engagement
    European Commission as part of the Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme

Employments

  • Professor/Senior Physician | Deputy Dean, Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, 2022-
  • Senior Consultant in paediatrics, Sachs’ Children and Youth Hospital, Stockholm South Hospital, 2013-
  • Senior Lecturer/Specialist Physician, Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, 2017-2022

Degrees and Education

  • Docent, Karolinska Institutet, 2017
  • Doctor Of Philosophy, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, 2002
  • Bachelor in Business Economics, National Economics and Political Science, Uppsala University, 2001
  • University Medical Degree, Karolinska Institutet, 2000

Leadership and responsibility assignments

Supervision

Committee work

News from KI

Events from KI