The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, along with its commercial sector partners, will help Sub-Saharan African countries improve their digital health systems. The Digital Health Impact Accelerator (DHIA), a $50 million catalytic fund, has been established for this goal.

The fund’s debut was announced during the Africa HealthTech Summit in Kigali, Rwanda, on the sidelines of the second International Conference on Public Health in Africa, which took place from Tuesday, December 13 to Thursday, December 15.

“This fund will further strengthen regional and global data systems and monitoring capacity to data-driven decision-making, to provide better patient care, and to transform millions of lives,” said Rob Cryer, Manager of Country Technology Services at the Global Fund and Head of the DHIA Catalytic Fund.

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“Since its creation, the Global Fund has played a critical role in enhancing low- and middle-income nations’ digital health systems and health data. These instruments are critical for fighting infectious diseases and preventing future health hazards,” he continued.

Indeed, digital health is still underdeveloped and underutilised in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the Covid-19 health crisis, this area of medicine has been stimulated. Because of the growing number of mobile phone users, creative e-health projects have proliferated since then. According to the GSM Association, there will be at least 634 million mobile users in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2025. Data indicating that digital technology has already influenced consumer behaviours and will soon influence patient habits.

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Through the DHIA Catalytic Fund, the Global Fund and its private partners hope to help countries in Sub-Saharan Africa accelerate and scale digital health solutions such as expanded Internet access, strengthened information systems for data sharing, increased use of mobile technologies, patient-centric digital tools, and unique patient identifiers.

Global Fund digital health Africa Global Fund digital health Africa

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert. 
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard