The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has said that it is advancing efforts to establish a continental digital health identity system aimed at strengthening data protection, improving healthcare delivery and enhancing outbreak response across Africa.
Prof. Yap Boum II, Deputy Incident Manager for Mpox at the Africa CDC Incident Management Support Team (IMST), disclosed the developments on Thursday during the weekly high-level regional news conference.
Boum II said the initiative formed part of a broader digital public health agenda designed to help African countries securely manage health data, while improving coordination during public health emergencies.
He explained that the proposed digital health framework would operate at both continental and national levels to ensure secure storage, analysis and sharing of health information.
According to him, a key pillar of the initiative is the creation of a continental public health data centre, which will serve as a secure platform for managing health data across member states.
“The centre is expected to function as a data hub where health information from countries can be safely hosted and analysed, enabling faster disease surveillance and response to emerging outbreaks.’
He said the system would also support national governments in strengthening their Emergency Operations Centres (EOCs) and health intelligence platforms.
He noted that about 29 African countries have already completed or strengthened their EOCs, which served as command centres for managing public health emergencies and coordinating responses to disease outbreaks.
He explained that improving national data hubs would allow countries to maintain health intelligence systems capable of tracking disease trends, analysing risks and responding quickly to public health threats.
He added that the continental digital health strategy was designed to complement national systems rather than replace them, ensuring that countries maintained control of their health data while benefiting from shared regional capabilities.
He said the initiative was inspired by successful digital health platforms already implemented in countries such as Rwanda and Ethiopia, where digital tools have improved data management and health service coordination.
He said that digital health identity systems could also help healthcare workers access patient medical histories more easily during emergencies, improving clinical decision-making and reducing medical errors.
According to him, the broader digital transformation agenda is part of its strategy to strengthen Africa’s health security and sovereignty, ensuring that the continent has the technological capacity to manage public health data and respond effectively to health threats.
He emphasised that collaboration with national governments and partners would be critical to ensuring that digital health systems were implemented in ways that protected citizens’ privacy while improving access to quality healthcare.
He reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to supporting member states in developing secure digital health systems that would enhance disease surveillance, strengthen health systems and improve public health outcomes across the continent.
