African hospitals and health agencies are increasingly using AI tools to prioritise patients, predict disease outbreaks, and automate diagnostics.
Dar es Salaam. Hospitals and startups are being urged to work together to develop national artificial intelligence (AI) healthcare strategies focused on data sharing and training health workers in digital skills.
African hospitals and health agencies are increasingly using AI tools to prioritise patients, predict disease outbreaks, and automate diagnostics.
Rather than copying foreign systems, local innovators are adapting AI to meet regional needs, aiming to create inclusive, people-centred digital healthcare.
Experts recommend adopting the Dawn Directive as a continental AI literacy framework and investing in African AI startups and infrastructure to shape the continent’s innovation future.
APAIC 2025 Chairperson and CEO Abdulwahid Ali Khamis said Tanzania’s health system has long faced underfunding, staff shortages, and poor infrastructure.
Yet a quiet transformation is underway that could make Africa a leader in digital health innovation.
“The next generation of AI, known as agentic AI, goes beyond data analysis. It can act, make decisions, and collaborate with humans in real time, serving as a smart partner for doctors, hospital managers, and public health officials,” he said.
He added that Tanzania’s young population, expanding digital infrastructure, and growing pool of AI experts give the country an advantage.
African innovators are building AI-ready hospitals, smart labs, and connected community health systems.
Mr Khamis invited governments, investors, educators, and development partners to join APAIC 2025 in Arusha and sign the Mombasa Declaration on Agentic AI.
He noted that adopting agentic AI will require investment in data infrastructure, ethical frameworks, and digital literacy, and highlighted hospitals already integrating AI to support, not replace, human expertise.
