Health
Africa Must Build Intelligent Health Infrastructure Before AI Implementation– Salako
The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Salako, says African countries must build intelligent digital health infrastructure before fully harnessing Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Salako said this while delivering the opening address at the Fifth Africa Healthtech Summit in Kigali, Rwanda.
The speech, delivered at the summit, was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday.
The summit has the theme: “From Digital Ambition to Country Transformation: Building Sustainable and Intelligent Health Systems in Africa.”
He said Africa had demonstrated its capacity to innovate through digital applications, electronic medical records, telemedicine platforms, surveillance systems and AI tools.
“The question is no longer whether Africa can innovate. The question is whether we can connect these innovations into sustainable national systems that improve the lives of our people,” he said.
Salako said Nigeria was making the transition through the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative, implemented through a Sector-Wide Approach.
He said digital transformation was being treated as a cross-cutting enabler of health-system transformation, supporting service delivery, governance, financing and health outcomes.
According to him, previous investments in digital health produced valuable solutions, but many were programme-specific and unable to communicate with one another.
Salako said the experience demonstrated that digitising a fragmented health system did not automatically create integration needed for efficiency, optimisation and value for money.
“So, rather than beginning with another application, Nigeria decided to begin with the architecture,” he said.
He said Nigeria had developed the National Digital Health Architecture (NDHA) through the Nigeria Digital in Health Initiative, with endorsement through the National Council on Health.
According to him, the architecture provides a national blueprint and rules for the evolution of the country’s digital health ecosystem.
“National Digital Health Architecture is replacing fragmented, siloed projects with a unified, secure, and interoperable ecosystem,” he said.
Salako said Nigeria was also developing foundational infrastructure, including a Health Information Exchange with a Shared Health Record and national registries for clients, health facilities and healthcare workers.
“The principle is simple: one patient, one health record,” he said.
He said the goal was to ensure that health information could securely follow patients across facilities, programmes and levels of care.
Salako, however, said technology and architecture alone could not deliver the desired transformation without standards, governance and accountability.
He said advancing interoperability standards and addressing fragmentation in electronic medical record systems had therefore become an imperative in Nigeria’s digital transformation journey.
According to him, the National Health Technology and Data Analytics Office was recently established by President Bola Tinubu to strengthen governance, standardisation and coordinated implementation.
He said the office would coordinate Nigeria’s digital health agenda, harmonise public and private institutions and supervise the operationalisation of the NDHA.
Salako said a strong digital foundation was essential for Africa to benefit from the next frontier of health technology which is AI.
“AI cannot compensate for fragmented data, weak standards or systems that cannot communicate.
“If Africa wants to benefit fully from AI, we must invest first in interoperable architecture, trustworthy data, cybersecurity, governance and the people capable of managing these systems,” he said.
He urged African countries not to become merely consumers of health technology, but to help define standards, govern data and develop local capabilities.
The minister also called for stronger collaboration among governments, development partners and the private sector to promote innovation, investment and partnerships.
He added that investments should leave behind stronger institutions, local capacity and infrastructure that governments could sustain beyond individual projects or grants.
“Digital ambition should not ultimately be about technology. It should be about the pregnant woman who should receive safer care because the right information reaches the right health worker at the right time,” he said.
He said the same transformation should ensure that children’s vaccination histories remained available when families moved, while reducing the administrative burden on health workers.
According to him, policymakers should also be able to identify emerging diseases, medicine shortages, resource needs and interventions that were producing results.
He said Africa’s ambition should therefore move beyond digitising healthcare to building systems that could “learn, connect, anticipate and respond.”
Salako said that as AI augmented medical practice, robotics transformed surgery and health data increasingly drove policy, equity must remain central to digital health transformation.
“Technology must serve people, digital tools must close gaps, not widen them, and our innovations must be sustainable, secure, and accessible to all,” he said.
He said affordability, context specificity, ethical guardrails and respect for national data sovereignty must remain central to discussions on AI and other technological innovations.
The minister, however, reaffirmed Nigeria’s commitment to learning from and sharing experiences with other African countries in advancing digital health transformation.(NAN) www.nannews.ng
Edited by Funmilayo Adeyemi
