Digital health is expanding across Africa, but countries are at different stages, with gaps in infrastructure, data governance and digital systems still to address. The New Times spoke to Judith Nguimfack, head of the Digital Health Division at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), during the Africa HealthTech Summit in Kigali this week about the continent’s digital health progress, protecting patient data and the increasing use of artificial intelligence in healthcare. Excerpts: Are African countries ready for digital transformation in health? Readiness is not binary. Countries are at different stages of digital health maturity, but digitalisation has been taking place across the continent for more than 20 years and progress is being made. The focus should be on how countries are progressing, where they want to take their digital health systems and what they want to achieve What is Africa CDC doing to ensure member states are ready for this transformation? Africa CDC’s role is to provide leadership and coordination on health as the African Union’s health agency. In digital health, we use our convening power to develop guidance and standards, while supporting member states to lead the agenda at the country level. Partners provide support through funding and implementation. We are focusing on five areas such as continental frameworks, digital maturity assessments, interoperability, governance and sovereignty, and implementation capacity. Our primary healthcare digitalisation framework is helping countries move from fragmented, project-based approaches towards health system reform. Digital maturity assessments help identify gaps and guide investment based on evidence. We are developing interoperability standards so existing systems can communicate and exchange information without requiring countries to replace legacy systems. We are also working on safeguards for data access and privacy, and ensuring member states retain authority over their data. Workforce capacity is still a concern; we need to strengthen the structures and skills that can help countries take digital health programmes to scale. How should patients’ data be protected, mainly when it is used for research and to improve care? Health data belongs first and foremost to the people. Governments and authorities, as custodians of the data, have a responsibility to protect it. Patients should know that they have the right to access their health records. Africa CDC is developing a continental health data governance framework to guide member states on who can access data, for what purpose, for how long and under what safeguards. We are advocating for privacy by design and data minimisation, meaning collecting only the data needed for a specific purpose. Other safeguards include encryption when transferring sensitive patient data, role-based access and audit trails showing who accessed patient data and when. There must also be clear accountability, appropriate patient consent and other lawful ways of using the data. We are developing the framework with member states and partners, and countries will then adapt it to suit their own needs. What benefits and risks are you seeing from the use of AI in African health systems? AI is already creating value on the continent, but we should distinguish real applications from the hype. We are seeing AI used for diagnostic support, including interpretation of medical images, analysis of large health datasets, clinical decision support and reducing the administrative workload of health workers. At Africa CDC, we are using AI for predictive analytics during outbreak response. For example, our infection prevention team uses it to anticipate how much infection prevention equipment will be needed based on how an outbreak is progressing, but we are equally focused on the risks. These include biased algorithms trained on people that may not represent Africans, poor-quality or unrepresentative data, privacy and cybersecurity risks, lack of transparency, clinical safety and dependence on external vendors. There is also unequal access to the infrastructure needed to use AI. When innovators present AI models, I ask where they are hosted. Most of the time, the answer is Amazon Web Services. We still lack sufficient infrastructure to host these models on our continent. We are therefore working to build infrastructural capacity so that AI can be developed and run in Africa. How can countries such as Rwanda benefit from the continental health data governance framework? The continental health data governance initiative started in 2025 with more than 40 member states, including Rwanda. We have a good collaboration with the Government of Rwanda and have already organised an exchange study with the country. As health systems become more digital and AI-driven, data governance is becoming health infrastructure and part of the enabling environment. Rwanda has laws protecting health data, which has been defined as sensitive data requiring specific protection. I wanted to conduct research in Rwanda in 2022 or 2023 but could not because, being based outside Rwanda, I could not access health data. That shows Rwanda is quite advanced in this area. Rwanda contributed to developing the continental framework, but we would also want the country to consider how the framework can work alongside its existing law. A law is not static; it can evolve as needs change.
