African countries strive to develop telemedicine strategies
Zolani Kraai | Monday August 14, 2023 06:00
Giving an overview of the highly anticipated deliberations, WHO regional representative to Botswana, Dr Josephine Namboze said during a media induction meeting that most of the African countries are yet to show potential in approving their respective digital health technologies that would seek to transform their respective healthcare deliveries.
These include ways to harness innovation to improve health outcome and strengthen health information systems. She said in 2020, the 70th session adopted the strategy for scaling up health innovations in the WHO African region and a progress report on the implementation of the strategy for scaling up health innovations in Africa will be presented to member states with the aim to further discuss their digital health technologies.
Namboze added discussions on digital health technology would be the significance of telemedicine in Africa, which she said could help improve rural access to specialist and other healthcare, and may address some of the existing health system’s challenges and deficiencies in health care provision and delivery. However, she said some African countries are already making strides to create telemedicine strategies while others are already implementing them. In 2015, with the assistance of WHO, Botswana developed a draft e-Health strategy, premised on the WHO/ITU eHealth strategy toolkit aimed at having telehealth services, eHealth and a standard telehealth infrastructure in place by 2016.
However, this has not occurred because the strategy has yet to be approved, according to an assessment by BMC Health Services Research study. However, Namboze stressed that Botswana’s eHealth progress will be presented during the meeting. Notwithstanding, some of the topics to be discussed are the universal health care, which is a core pillar of the Sustainable Development Goals, and Antimicrobial resistance, which is a significant global health threat, Africa inclusive.
RC73 through the regional strategy 2023-2030, for expediting the implementation and monitoring of national action plans on antimicrobial resistance, in the WHO African region will address the rising concern of antimicrobial resistance and urgent need for coordinated efforts to combat it.
“Although Botswana has done well in the fight against Malaria, it will still participate in the discussion on finding sustainable financial solutions to strengthen the malaria response in the region as they play a crucial role in malaria control, prevention, and elimination efforts,” said Namboze “Other topics such as strengthening community protection and resilience, multi-sectoral actions to address the nutrition and food insecurity crisis, addressing the challenge of women’s health in Africa, and accelerating progress on neglected tropical diseases will be centre of discussion.”