Can Artificial Intelligence Help Transform Africa’s Ailing Health Sector?
The Covid-19 pandemic has made clear that our health is inextricably connected and that world leaders need to commit to the improvement of healthcare even in the remotest of places. In Africa, increased population density, poor rural infrastructure and a shortage of medical professionals have made public health a nightmare, raising the risk of more disease outbreaks and a higher potential for another pandemic.
The healthcare system in Africa needs radical intervention as it is essential to the continent’s development. A large number of Africa’s population is under 35 years old, and so a young, healthy population will help secure Africa’s future and economic development.
Challenges in Africa’s health sectors
The healthcare sector in Africa is riddled with many challenges, ranging from lack of adequate healthcare professionals to inadequate funding and lack of infrastructure. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Nigeria’s doctor to population ratio is at 0.3 per 1000 persons. Sadly, other countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone are in worse situations at 0.1 and 0.2 per 1000 persons, which is grossly inadequate. There’s also a challenge of poor infrastructure, especially in rural areas.
To solve these challenges, Africa needs to have a more tech-driven approach to healthcare, as developed countries worldwide are currently doing. Developed countries are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to simplify patients, doctors, and hospital administrators’ lives, allowing it to perform tasks that humans typically do, but in less time and at a fraction of the cost.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
According to Investopedia, Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines. This means machines are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions.
A subset of artificial intelligence is machine learning, which refers to the concept that computer programs can automatically learn from and adapt to new data without being assisted by humans.
How Artificial Intelligence is used in the Medical Industry
AI is currently used in healthcare by doctors and hospitals to access vast data sets of potentially life-saving information. These include treatment methods and their outcomes, survival rates, and speed of care gathered across millions of patients, geographical locations, and innumerable and sometimes interconnected health conditions.
This branch of computer sciences is gradually becoming a transformational force in healthcare. From chronic diseases and cancer to radiology and risk assessment, AI provides endless opportunities. It shows how much we can use technology to deploy more precise, efficient, and impactful interventions at precisely the right moment in a patient’s care. Intelligent devices can identify deterioration, suggest that sepsis is taking hold, or sense the development of complications.
Some AI applications in healthcare include:
- Using AI to diagnose and reduce error efficiently
- Streamlining patient experience with AI
- Developing the next generation of radiology tools
- Expanding access to healthcare in underserved or developing regions
- Creating more precise analytics for pathology images
- Monitoring health through wearables and personal devices
These are just some of many other applications as research is ongoing in improving healthcare using AI.
How Artificial Intelligence can be applied to Africa’s Healthcare system
One of the AI applications in healthcare is that it helps expand access to healthcare in underserved or developing regions. Africa is currently facing a severe shortage of healthcare professionals, including radiologists and ultrasound technicians. Artificial intelligence could help mitigate the impacts of this severe deficit of qualified clinical staff by taking over some of the diagnostic duties typically allocated to humans.
According to Health IT Analytics, AI imaging tools can screen chest x-rays for signs of tuberculosis, often achieving a level of accuracy comparable to humans. This capability could be deployed through an app available to providers in low-resource areas, reducing the need for a trained diagnostic radiologist on site. Smart wearable devices can help improve fitness. These devices can track steps, calories burnt and heart rates.
Albeit slowly, the use of AI in healthcare has already begun in Africa. Recently, a Nigerian startup Ubenwa created an artificial intelligence system that analyses a baby’s cry to detect signs of baby asphyxia, which is the third leading killer of infants worldwide. Today, the detection of birth asphyxia takes 10 seconds with the Ubenwa application. In 2018, five high school girls developed an app based on an MIT open-source software to identify fake drugs in Nigeria.
Indeed, these are few but laudable achievements for Africa, but the journey has only just begun. While we hope for more local inventions, governments across the continent need to prioritize the adoption of currently available technologies from other parts of the world. They should focus on expanding access to healthcare in underserved regions using artificial intelligence as that is the surest way to secure Africa’s future and economic development.
In what other ways do you think Artificial Intelligence could be used to improve Africa’s healthcare? Please, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
