Innovative digital health solutions for sub-Saharan Africa
Background:
The recent rapid advancements in digitalisation and the unprecedented opportunities created by digital health, data or AI promise to accelerate the achievement of the health-related SDGs. The EU-AU summit declaration[1] identified digitalisation, health, scientific cooperation and technology sharing (through the AU-EU innovation Agenda) as key pillars of the joint EU-U commitments. Digital health and health research have a central role, both in the EU Global Health Strategy[2] and the Africa CDC’s Digital Transformation Strategy. Whilst aligning with the WHO Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025[3], this call will contribute to the implementation of the EU-AU summit commitments, including the EU-AU innovation agenda[4]; to the implementation of the EU Global Health Strategy and contribute to enabling the implementation of the Africa CDC’s Strategic Plan 2023-2027, by enhancing and integrating digital and analytics approaches to public health in Africa.
Integration of digital health innovations in national and/or regional strategies and context will be instrumental to ensure long-term impact and sustainability.
Scope:
Proposals are expected to:
- Be anchored in the scope Global Health EDCTP3 and of national/regional digital health strategies;
- Target demonstrated highest medical needs in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tackle justified context-specific needs;
- Develop, improve or upscale solutions, with early-stage involvement of end users and health services implicated;
- Propose solutions which demonstrate seemless integration interoperability with key existing national, regional or global systems;
- Propose tools which are sustainable, accessible, open-source, evidence-based and which follow the standards of data protection and digital health global public goods;[5][6]
- Propose a sound sustainability/integration strategy and prevent further fragmentation of the digital health ecosystem through a multiplication of pilots. Proposals of new tools must justify the need for additional developments and the shortcomings of available solutions. Strong evidence is expected for the justification of proposed actions. Access to evidence for existing solutions must be demonstrated. Scoping studies/Evidence generation on the need for proposed solutions are encouraged in the initiation phase of projects.
Proposals could be related to one or more of the following areas:
- Scaling-up of digital innovations that have already yielded proven results, and their transferring to other countries where they have not yet been adopted;
- Digital systems used in the implementation of clinical research and patients management;
- Integration of digital health resources and data systems in sub-Saharan African countries with limited capacity, defining best practices, open standards, and quality-assured building blocks such as data harmonisation.
- Remote access to diagnostics capabilities and health professionals;
- Optimisation and adaptation of bioinformatics pipeline for next-generation-sequencing data and omics analyses in relation to the infectious diseases in scope;
- Systems biology applications to sustain health technology manufacturing, development, and optimisation;
- Systematic architectures and warehouses, at both national and provincial level, for clinical and epidemiological data collection, respecting the FAIR guidelines (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable);
- Adaptation of image-based analysis tools and software for diagnostics systems of diseases in scope.
Where possible, collaboration and coordination with the Team Europe Initiative on Digital Health[7] is encouraged. Applicants are reminded of the expectation that proposals should come from research consortia with a strong representation of institutions and researchers from sub-Saharan African countries, including involvement of Franco/Lusophone countries if possible. Applicants are also reminded of the expectation of reaching out to organisations in countries with relatively lower research capacities.
[1] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/54412/final_declaration-en.pdf
[2] EU Global Health Strategy - Guiding Principles 4 and 5:
https://health.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-03/international_ghs-report-2022_en.pdf
[3] https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/documents/gs4dhdaa2a9f352b0445bafbc79ca799dce4d.pdf
[4] AU-EU Innovation Agenda: https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-07/ec_rtd_au-eu-innovation-agenda-final-version.pdf
[5] Indicative standards (to be agreed which reference should be ): https://digitalpublicgoods.net/standard/
[6] https://digitalpublicgoods.net/standard/