Healing Hands: How African Innovators Are Using AI to Save Lives in 2025
It's a tech-step forward for all humanity 🔥🫶
Hello, Dear Innovator 👋
Welcome to the month of Red Hearts❤️
From our poll last week, 67% of you guys asked to know what’s up with AI and the health-tech sector.
Ngl, it was particularly exciting to put this one together cos these innovators are not only pouring their hearts into their AI-driven tech-solutions; they are saving lives and making the world a better place 🥺 and that’s really the whole point of building any innovative solution!
Today, you’ll:
See how AI is revolutionising the heath-tech sector
Discover real-world case studies where AI has transformed patient care and outcomes
Get AI-centered ideas that’ll help you tweak your tech product for the better
The landscape of healthcare in Africa is experiencing a transformative shift, thanks to the ingenious application of AI by innovators. In 2025, innovative solutions are emerging to tackle longstanding challenges, making healthcare more accessible and effective.
1) AI-Powered Pregnancy Scans in Uganda
In Uganda, an AI-powered ultrasound has been piloted to provide essential pregnancy scans, especially in rural areas. The ScanNav FetalCheck software by Intelligent Ultrasound accurately dates pregnancies without the need for specialist sonographers.
This innovation particularly offers crucial insights in early pregnancy, potentially reducing stillbirths and complications. It's designed for use by midwives or nurses and allows for portable scanning at home, expanding access for those far from urban hospitals.
Additionally, AI is aiding a large study on aspirin to prevent pre-eclampsia in Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa, emphasizing accurate gestational dating for effective intervention. Despite challenges, the initiative has garnered positive responses from pregnant women, providing them a sense of control and improved prenatal care.
2) AI-Driven Medical Innovation in Rwanda
The Disrumpere project, a collaboration between Rwandan and French scientists at IRCAD Africa, aims to democratise medical diagnostics and treatment through AI. It enhances prenatal care, enables AI-assisted cancer detection, and expands access to affordable ultrasound imaging, reducing reliance on specialists and improving healthcare in underserved areas.
Disrumpere uses AI-assisted ultrasound technology to detect early-stage tumors, particularly in the liver. The system guides minimally invasive procedures, like biopsies and radiofrequency ablation, allowing for effective treatment of small cancerous tumors using needle-based interventions.
The IRCAD team is breaking bounds in Rwanda 😍
3) AI-Enhanced Patient Communication in South Africa
Laguna Health is using AI to enhance telephonic communication between patients and care managers, primarily nurses, who provide post-hospitalisation support.
Their system, Laguna Insight, helps reduce administrative burdens by summarising critical patient information and offering real-time performance feedback regarding empathy and language use during calls. Laguna Insight is currently in use by healthcare professionals in South Africa through collaborations with Discovery.
4) Speech Recognition Technology in Nigeria
Intron Health, a Nigerian AI company founded in 2020, specialises in clinical speech recognition technology tailored for African accents. Their platform transcribes medical terminology with up to 92% accuracy, even with heavy accents, making it a valuable tool for healthcare professionals.
By reducing documentation time, it allows doctors to focus more on patient care. The company is also working on a multilingual product to facilitate better communication between doctors and non-English-speaking patients.
In July 2024, they secured $1.6 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Microtraction, with participation from Plug and Play Ventures and others. The funds are being used to deepen research efforts, enhance cloud-native and on-premises capabilities, and expand distribution. Intron Health currently serves over 30 public and private hospitals, providing care to more than 56,000 patients across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Uganda.
5) Reducing Stillbirths with AI in Malawi
The Area 25 health center in Lilongwe, Malawi, has achieved an 82% reduction in stillbirths and neonatal deaths through the use of AI-enabled fetal monitoring software 😱
This technology continuously tracks a baby's vital signs during labour, providing clinicians with early warnings of abnormalities. Unlike traditional monitoring, AI systems offer real-time insights and require fewer resources, making them accessible with minimal training. This advancement has significantly improved maternity care in Malawi, allowing clinicians to quickly identify and address fetal distress.
Loving our AI series so far?
Innovators in other sectors are using AI to improve their tech products too
Others ways that AI is reshaping African Health-tech in 2025:
In Nigeria, Ubenwa is using signal processing and machine learning to predict and enhance the diagnosis of birth asphyxia.
Africa Health Placements (AHP) in South Africa uses AI models to analyse administrative data, aiding in the prediction of the length of stay for healthcare workers in underserved communities.
What’s not to love about using AI to make tech products better
Keep Innovating! 😍