Africa Is A Hotspot For Digital Health

Digital health in Africa is booming, and that’s the greatest news since the invention of broadband internet connection. The flourishing of disruptive solutions might go down to the fact that instead of relying on traditional infrastructure and a conventional healthcare system, populations in Africa need cheap, easily accessible and genuinely problem-solving technologies. Why, when and how have they got there? Read on! Disrupted infrastructure should be … Africa has the world’s worst health record. The birth-continent of the homo sapiens bears one-quarter of the global disease burden, yet it spends only 1 percent of the worldwide health expenditure and has only 3 percent of the world’s health workers. According to the WHO, there are rarely regions where there is more than one physician for less than 1,000 patients. There are even extremities that are incomprehensible to anyone living in a luckier part of the world. For example, one of the poorest countries in the world, Mozambique, has just 548 doctors for a population of more than 22 million. One of Africa’s most populous nations, Ethiopia is extremely short of doctors, with fewer than one doctor for every 36,407 people. Niger has just 288 doctors for a population of 14 million and one of the worst health crises in the world. Moreover, almost 90 percent of health workers are in cities – leaving rural areas with 885 medical staff, according to 2008 Health Ministry data; 40 percent of all health workers oper...
Source: The Medical Futurist - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Future of Medicine Healthcare Policy 3d printing Africa digital digital health digital technology Innovation mhealth mobile mobile health smartphone Source Type: blogs