Examining the Implementation of Digital Health to Strengthen the COVID-19 Pandemic Response and Recovery and Scale up Equitable Vaccine Access in African Countries

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted the world, having taken the lives of over 6 million individuals. Accordingly, this pandemic has caused a shift in conversations surrounding the burden of diseases worldwide, welcoming insights from multidisciplinary fields including digital health and artificial intelligence. Africa faces a heavy disease burden that exacerbates the current COVID-19 pandemic and limits the scope of public health preparedness, response, containment, and case management. Herein, we examined the potential impact of transformative digital health technologies in mitigating the global health crisis with reference to African countries. Furthermore, we proposed recommendations for scaling up digital health technologies and artificial intelligence–based platforms to tackle the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 and enable equitable vaccine access. Challenges related to the pandemic are numerous. Rapid response and management strategies—that is, contract tracing, case surveillance, diagnostic testing intensity, and most recently vaccine distribution mapping—can overwhelm the health care delivery system that is fragile. Although challenges are vast, digital health technologies can play an essential role in achieving sustainable resilient recovery and building back better. It is plausible that African nations are better equipped to rapidly identify, diagnose, and manage infected individuals for COVID-19, other diseases, future outbreaks, and pandemics.

Fine-tuned Sentiment Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccine–Related Social Media Data: Comparative Study

“…In the near future, our team plans to expand the methods demonstrated in this study into sentiment related to other types of vaccines (eg, human papillomavirus vaccines). We expect these results along with others to be used to develop tools to assist public health officials in monitoring public discourse regarding disease outbreaks, gaining a better understanding of vaccine hesitancy, and developing personalized digital interventions [ 33 , 34 ] and education campaigns.…”

Mapping digital health ecosystems in Africa in the context of endemic infectious and non-communicable diseases

“…For example, there were transformative tools and technologies implemented to prevent, control, diagnose, communicate, manage, and treat diseases during lockdowns and other tumultuous periods. In addition, wearable smartwatch devices have been adapted to detect physiological responses following COVID-19 vaccination 10 and audio-based digital testing of COVID-19 11 .…”

“…These technologies could be telemedicine, artificial intelligence, wearable devices, cloud-based applications, mobile health, big data, and electronic health records. Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the utility of digital health interventions in combating IDs and NCDs has boldly come into focus [8][9][10] . For example, there were transformative tools and technologies implemented to prevent, control, diagnose, communicate, manage, and treat diseases during lockdowns and other tumultuous periods.…”