Africa is stepping up efforts to use digital technologies, data and artificial intelligence to strengthen healthcare delivery, improve health security and build more resilient national health systems, as policymakers, health experts and technology leaders call for a shift from small-scale digital health projects to solutions that can operate across communities and national borders.
Speaking in a video address to the fifth Africa HealthTech Summit in Kigali, Africa CDC Director General Dr Jean Kaseya said digital health systems must deliver faster, more reliable and better-connected care while strengthening the continent’s broader health security architecture. Kaseya said digital transformation should cover the entire continuum of care, rather than being limited to individual applications or isolated health facilities. This includes detecting suspected cases within communities, facilitating referrals, supporting diagnostic testing, tracking patients and ensuring appropriate follow-up.
According to Kaseya, the effective use of digital technologies can help connect different parts of health systems and make it easier for health workers and healthcare facilities to exchange information. Such systems, he said, can also reduce the burden of repetitive manual reporting and allow health professionals to spend more time on patient care. He placed digital transformation within Africa’s wider health security and health sovereignty agenda, highlighting the need for African countries to develop systems that can strengthen their ability to monitor, respond to and manage health threats.
Continuity of care was another key issue in his address. Kaseya emphasized the importance of ensuring that patient information can move efficiently between health workers and facilities, allowing patients to receive more coordinated care even when they are referred from one part of the health system to another. The summit’s official programme identifies Kaseya as the Director General of Africa CDC.
The call for greater scale was echoed by Jean Philbert Nsengimana, Chairman of the Africa HealthTech Summit and Chief Digital Advisor at Africa CDC. Nsengimana said Africa needs to move beyond a landscape dominated by fragmented health-tech pilots and develop companies and technologies capable of operating at scale. He argued that healthcare could become one of Africa’s next major technology growth sectors if innovation is supported by the right combination of investment, accountability and long-term implementation. Rather than focusing only on individual technology demonstrations, Nsengimana called for greater attention to solutions that can be expanded across countries and adapted to different healthcare environments. He also stressed the importance of ensuring that the continent’s growing health-tech ecosystem is focused on practical health challenges and capable of producing measurable results.
The approach reflects a broader challenge facing digital health in Africa: promising technologies often emerge through individual projects, but expanding those solutions across national health systems requires sustained investment, effective regulation, reliable infrastructure, interoperable data systems and strong institutional support. The summit’s programme and current 2026dvisor at Africa CDC
WHO Regional Director for Africa Professor Mohamed Yakub Janabi also urged countries to close the gap between digital-health innovation and real-world healthcare delivery. Janabi called for African countries to move beyond promising pilot projects and focus on digital solutions that can reach communities and demonstrate measurable improvements in health outcomes. He highlighted the potential of artificial intelligence and digital innovation to help health authorities and healthcare workers identify health risks earlier and respond more effectively. At the same time, he cautioned that technology cannot replace health workers or compensate for fundamental weaknesses within health systems.
For Janabi, the success of digital health should therefore be measured not simply by the sophistication of a technology but by its ability to strengthen healthcare delivery and improve access for people and communities. He further emphasized that digital-health solutions should be designed with Africans, governed by Africans and built around African realities. This includes taking into account the different infrastructure, healthcare needs, languages, regulatory environments and social conditions found across the continent.
The discussions in Kigali point to a growing emphasis on treating digital health as a component of broader health-system development rather than as a standalone technology sector. For African countries, this means building systems that can connect communities, health workers, laboratories, hospitals and public-health authorities while enabling information to move more efficiently through the healthcare system. It also raises questions about data governance, privacy, cybersecurity, interoperability and the ownership of health technologies and infrastructure. As countries increasingly use digital platforms and AI in healthcare, policymakers will need to ensure that innovation is accompanied by appropriate safeguards and that new technologies strengthen rather than deepen existing inequalities.
https://trendsnafrica.com/health-experts-call-for-bridging-of-the-digital-health-divide-in-africa/
The central message emerging from the summit is that Africa’s digital-health transition will depend not only on developing new technologies but also on scaling proven solutions, strengthening health systems, investing in African innovation and ensuring that technology remains focused on patient and community needs. With health security increasingly linked to the ability to detect threats quickly, exchange reliable information and coordinate responses, digital transformation is being positioned as an important part of Africa’s effort to build more connected, resilient and self-reliant health systems.
