World Health Day is celebrated annually on 7 April, designed to both celebrate the anniversary of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1948, and specifically to shine a spotlight on different global health priorities each year. In 2025, the campaign centres on improving maternal and newborn health with the Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures campaign. Despite focus driven by the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the current global situation is stark, for example, every two minutes a woman dies during pregnancy or childbirth and about 70% of these occur in sub-Saharan Africa. This dire situation is echoed across other areas of healthcare, from access to surgery and vaccines to delivery of essential respiratory care.
The WHO recognises that Healthcare Technologies are essential for effective healthcare services helping medical and paramedical personnel in all stages of their work: from prevention to diagnosis, treatment and monitoring. They are a cornerstone of the UN SDGs to delivering a sustainable, cost-effective, and self-sufficient healthcare system across the globe to improve individual and population health.
But healthcare technology entails significant investments in economic, physical and human resources; its financial requirements can bear heavily on the limited resources of many African countries. To be able to function properly and safely, it requires an appropriate physical environment, proper care and maintenance, and skilled operators. Previously, these regions lacked the necessary skills to install, maintain, manage, upgrade, design and produce health technologies, leaving the continent reliant on foreign technical expertise. Indeed, most health technologies currently used in Africa are imported, typically from high-income countries, and are often inappropriate for use in the African context. This results in healthcare technology graveyards littered with broken or unusable equipment, wastage of valuable resources and the fast deterioration of healthcare facilities.
Quiet revolution unfolding across Africa
Despite these challenges there is reason for optimism and action. A quiet revolution is unfolding across Africa; one that challenges the outdated notion that medical innovation, and supplies of equipment, must always flow from the ‘Global North’ to the ‘Global South’. In fact, African engineers and innovators are designing healthcare technologies designed specifically for their context. Uganda’s ELITE Vein Locator, developed from Mbarara University of Science and Technology, uses near-infrared imaging to help nurses find veins in difficult cases - a game-changer for paediatric and elderly care in rural clinics. In Nigeria, the Safer Births Bundle developed by the University of Lagos is proving that simple, locally-produced delivery kits can dramatically reduce maternal mortality. In Ghana and Nigeria, Crib A’glow, the MedTech startup has developed a solar-powered phototherapy device for neonatal jaundice that costs 1/10th of imported units and withstands rural clinic conditions. Rwanda's Babyl Health built a telemedicine platform that handles 3,000 daily consultations via basic mobile phones - no smartphones required. The LeVe CPAP system is being manufactured in Uganda to provide a locally sustainable solution to respiratory care which is robust to environmental conditions that cripple imported machines. Perhaps most provocatively, the KeySuite Surgical System exposes the absurdity of African surgeons relying on prohibitively expensive equipment when a locally engineered solution costs 90% less. These examples pose a radical idea: maybe African hospitals don't need handouts, just fair access to innovation capital.
Path forward requires development of Africa’s engineering ecosystem
The path forward demands more than aid; it requires development of Africa’s engineering and innovation ecosystems to build a strong, sustainable health technology research and development base. This requires investment in people, infrastructure and regulatory infrastructure. Universities across Africa are training graduate engineers skilled in the development of health technologies. The African Biomedical Engineering Consortium (ABEC) was founded in 2012 with the vision of building and nurturing academic, technical, innovation and entrepreneurship competencies. Delft University of Technology developed 3 Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to provide theory and practice to maintain, troubleshoot and repair medical devices, as well as guidance on management of this equipment, such as budgeting and procurement. Meanwhile, countries like Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda are pioneering the development of streamlined regulatory and approval pathways for locally relevant devices, providing an alternative to international regulation which can be prohibitively expensive, time consuming and inappropriate for local innovators. Similarly, establishing high-quality (accredited) medical device manufacturing facilities within Africa completes the pipeline and will enable local production, improve g resilience and build socio-economic capital.al.
So how can the international biomedical engineering community help Africa’s experts to develop engineering and innovation ecosystems?
As this piece attests, solutions exist. However, we must recognize that sustainable global healthcare won’t come from donations, but from empowering those who understand these challenges best, African innovators and engineers themselves. Accordingly, we make the following recommendations:
- Academic institutions in high-income countries should partner with consortia like ABEC to embed reciprocal learning in undergraduate biomedical engineering programmes
- Professional Associations like the IMechE must work globally, supporting the development of allied associations in Africa, to strengthen local capacity
- International Standards Bodies should acknowledge and support the development of local regulatory pathways
Conclusion. This World Health Day, we must think beyond charity and confront an uncomfortable truth: the future of global healthcare technology isn’t just being imagined in Africa, it’s already here. We must work learn from failures of the past, not to stifle innovation with inappropriate aid, but to strengthen it through bi-lateral collaboration.
If you would like more information, you can contact out Biomedical Engineering Division here: https://www.imeche.org/industry-sectors/biomedical-engineering
Co-authors
Brian Matovu, Biomedical Engineer, Biomedical Engineering Department, Makerere University
June Madete, Director, Medical Device innovation program, Kenyatta University
Dr.ir. Roos Oosting- Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering for Global Health Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands