“Technology can transform Africa’s health – lets encourage talent and invest in innovation,” WHO’s Dr Matshidiso Moeti

Africans have adopted and adapted new technology brilliantly. It is time we applied their innovative and entrepreneurial skills to solve the continent’s chronic health problems. Writes Dr Matshidiso Moeti – World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Director for Africa.

Africa is
a continent of extremes. You can go to many rural areas of the continent and
find students glued to their mobile phones, yet their homes still lack basic
sanitation. That is because the exponential growth of mobile phone use and
internet penetration – that has led to Africa being dubbed the ‘mobile
continent’ – is democratic and transcends age, gender or class.

Data
collected by a global media agency indicates that more than 82% of the
population in Africa was covered by mobile phone networks by the end of 2017.
Indeed, as time goes on, more advanced networks are coming to the continent,
and Africans are increasingly connecting to the internet via 3G and 4G
networks. Yet, despite such huge advances, sub-Saharan Africa underperforms in
a number of critical areas. This is particularly obvious when we look at health
care and health security across the continent. Four hundred million people in
the region lack access to health care services.

According
to the International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group), while sub-Saharan
Africa is home to more than 1 billion people – 13% of the world’s population –
a staggering 24% of the global disease burden is felt by Africans.

The
region has only 2% of the world’s doctors and benefits from just 1% of the
world’s health expenditure. These facts illustrate the vast amount of emphasis
and importance that is focused on technology and internet connectivity – in
direct contrast to how much we focus on health.

Supporting technological innovations

But what
if we were able to harness a fraction of Africa’s hunger for technology and
connectivity and divert this towards creating solutions to health care issues
that we Africans still struggle to overcome?

As
determined as we are, we should take our fate into our own hands and use our
skills and expertise and channel this towards health.

To a
certain extent, this is already happening. Just last year, Nigerian school
girls developed an app that detects counterfeit medicine. A Ugandan inventor
created a biomedical smart jacket that aims to detect pneumonia four times
faster than a doctor. Teenage girls in Kenya created an app that connects girls
who have been affected by female genital mutilation.

Across
the continent, mothers-to-be are using their mobile phones to access
life-saving medical treatment. Meanwhile, drone technology is used to transport
vaccines and blood to hospitals and clinics where patients need them the most.

While not
all of these inventions come from Africa, a testament to our determination is
the way that we have been able to adapt – and in some cases reinvent –
innovation for our own purposes. We need to see this happening more.

The
International Finance Corporation estimates that approximately $25bn to $30bn
in new investment will be required to meet Africa’s health care demands. Of
this, a significant proportion must be earmarked for technological developments
that can effectively deal with the unique health challenges the continent
faces.

The World
Health Organisation recognises the enormous contribution technology can make in
solving some of the continent’s big health challenges. As such, earlier this
year we launched the first-ever WHO Innovation Challenge.

Our aim
was to source, select and profile the innovations and even community-based
initiatives that apply new and fresh thinking to address Africa’s unmet health
needs.

We
received almost 2,500 applications, from 77 countries and of these 44 were
within Africa. A record 34% of submissions were from female innovators and a
significant proportion of entries came in from youth innovators.

The top
30 were invited to exhibit on the opening day of the second WHO Africa Health
Forum, held in Praia, Cabo Verde, in March, and officiated by the President of
the Republic of Cabo Verde, Jorge Carlos de Almeida Fonseca.

The sheer
volume of responses the challenge generated illustrates how innovators –
home-grown and those off-shore – believe that technology has the potential to
transform health care in Africa.

We must
continue to encourage this talent and invest in innovation. Only then will we
come close to reaching our goal of universal health care across the continent.

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