Malabo (Equatorial Guinea), 30 August 2010 -- African countries have been urged to embrace and use e-Health -- defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the cost-effective and secure use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for health and health–related fields - with a view to contributing to strengthening their health systems and improving health outcomes.

Making the plea in a report to the 60th session of WHO Regional Committee for Africa taking place in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Sambo, said: “eHealth can contribute to health systems strengthening in several ways by improving the availability, quality and use of information and evidence through strengthened health information systems and public health surveillance systems; developing the health workforce and improving performance by eliminating distance and time barriers through telemedicine and continuing medical education; improving access to existing global and local health information and knowledge; and fostering positive lifestyle changes to prevent and control common diseases.”.

The report, to be discussed on Tuesday, identifies some of the challenges facing countries in the adoption and application of eHealth solutions as tools for strengthening health systems in order to accelerate progress towards the attainment of the MDGs and improving health outcomes in the Re-gion.

The challenges include: weak and inadequate ICT infrastructure and services and limited ability to use them; limited awareness of the potential benefits of the use of e-Health; inade-quate financial resources; lack of an enabling policy environment, and issues related to weak leadership, coordination, monitoring and evaluation.

Dr Sambo however maintains that despite these challenges, opportunities existed for plan-ning and deploying e-Health solutions in the African Region.

Accordingly, he proposes a seven –point eHealth action plan, all in the context of the im-plementation of the Algiers and Ouagadougou Declarations – that would lead to increased access to e-Health tools and services.

These include promotion of national political commitment and awareness of e-Health; the development of an enabling policy environment; the strengthening of leadership and coordination, the building of infrastructure and the establishment services for eHealth.

Others are the development of human capacity for e-Health through systematic education in eHealth for health personnel; the mobilization of financial resources for e-Health through necessary investment in ICT infrastructure and services in the health sector, as well as the monitoring and evaluation of national e-Health plans and frameworks by instituting systems to measure progress in the implementation of national eHealth strategic plans.

Dr Sambo listed some major eHealth projects in the Region. These include the Telemedicine Network for Francophone African Countries; Access to Research Initiative (HINARI); ePortuguese Project and the Pan African eNetwork Project.

Several countries in the Region are implementing telemedicine and eLearning projects, some of them using mobile phones to support the delivery of health care, awareness and educa-tion; remote data collection; remote monitoring and home care; communicating treatments to patients; and reporting and responding to disease outbreaks and emergencies.

Others are using satellite technologies to broadcast health promotion messages to patients and health workers in hospitals and clinics.

Dr Sambo concluded: “While eHealth projects in the Region continue to be on a small scale and are fragmented, the rapid advances in ICT have put countries under intense market pressure to adopt ICT-associated services. There is a need to ensure that the introduction of ICT in the health sector is driven by country needs and appropriate policies, rather than by pressures from technology producers”.

África Tiene que Adoptar y Utilizar la Cibersalud

For more information, please contact:

Technical contact

Dr Derege Kebede, WHO/AFRO, Brazzaville; Tel. + 47 241 176 E-mail: kebeded [at] afro.who.int

Media contact

Samuel T. Ajibola, WHO/AFRO, Brazzaville; Tel: (+242) 7700202; + 41 241 39378; E-mail: ajibolas [at] afro.who.int