Digital health initiatives expand in Gabon and Mali

African nations are increasingly turning to digital solutions to modernize fragmented healthcare systems and improve patient outcomes.

In Gabon, the Ministry of Health is collaborating with the Spanish technology group INDRA to implement digital health infrastructure. The initiative focuses on the ‘My Health’ solution, which aims to centralize medical records, vaccinations, and prescriptions into a single digital environment. This system is designed to ensure medical data follows the patient across different facilities, potentially enabling teleconsultations for remote populations in areas such as Lastourville and Mékambo.

In Mali, the startup AODI, founded by Astou Oumar Diallo, is developing a biometric health card to streamline patient identification and data access. Utilizing NFC technology and biometric identifiers, the card would provide healthcare workers with immediate access to a patient’s medical history, including allergies and previous exam results. The goal is to reduce the time spent on administrative identification and mitigate the complications caused by reliance on paper-based records.