Samia Suluhu Hassan, Tanzanian Vice-President, urged the East African Community (EAC) member countries to invest in digital technology to boost implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Hassan further said, digital health technology also stood a better chance of strengthening regional healthcare services and addressing all features of poverty.
“Tanzania has already began on digitizing its healthcare system via the Ministry of Health and several other agencies to help track medicine delivery from purchase point to delivery point and online reporting of the unfavourable effects of the use of medicine and cosmetics”, Hassan said.
“Digital health technology could improve health governance as well as entrance to quality and effective delivery of health services”, said, the Executive Secretary of the East African Health Research Commission, Gibson Kibiki.
Kibiki added that over the last 15 years, east Africa has witnessed a growth of digital health across the entire health sector.
At the conference themed “Technology for Health Systems Transformation and Attainment of the UN-Sustainable Development Goals” in East Africa, Kibiki said, “The quick rise to mobile technology in Africa has stimulated a conducive environment for the use of information and communication technology in health.”
