Next year, HSPC polyclinic in Kumba, a private hospital in Southwest Cameroon, will be provided with a digital application which will help it compile data on patients for epidemiological surveillance.

According to the app’s developer, Datareach, a start-up of the University of California, the application “will enable a better understanding of the healthcare context in communities, as far as non-communicable diseases, such as heart diseases, diabetes, obesity, asthma, and hypertension notably, are concerned”.

This will help “identify the pathological patterns, mitigate potential outbreaks, develop educational and preventive strategies, and identify the patients who could be prone to these diseases”.   

Thanks to this technological prowess, which is the result of a partnership between Datareach and the Cameroonian start-up Songhai Labs, Cameroon will host one of the first African experiments on epidemiological monitoring via artificial intelligence. So think the actors of this partnership which involves  a significant transfer of technologies.

Nevertheless, if the use of artificial intelligence for epidemiological monitoring is new, its use in the health sector is not new in Cameroon.

Indeed, in March 2017, Sophia Genetics, the world’s leader in Data-Driven Medicine, revealed that the Bonassama hospital in Douala is one of the seven health facilities in Africa using Sophia, an Artificial Intelligence technology developed by the Swiss company in order to improve patients’ diagnosis and care.

Brice R. Mbodiam