* Investment rising in health tech firms operating in Africa
* Pandemic seen accelerating use of health-related
technologies
* Ghana in talks with Zipline to expand drone delivery
* Poor internet, power shortages threaten wider tech usage
By Alexis Akwagyiram
LAGOS, Sept 7 (Reuters) - When Loveth Metiboba's baby had
diarrhoea, she worried that taking him to a clinic near her home
in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, might expose them both to the
coronavirus.
"The idea of going to the clinic was very scary," said
Metiboba, a researcher for a charity.
Instead, the clinic, run by Nigerian health technology firm
eHealth Africa, sent her a web browser link to hold a video chat
with a doctor who diagnosed her son with a mild illness and
prescribed medicine to avoid dehydration.
Across the globe, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated
changes in the way medicine is practised as medical care
increasingly begins with an online consultation rather than a
face-to-face meeting.
But the opportunities in Africa, where access to medical
care is often restricted, are transformational and offer growth
prospects to companies that provide online consultations and
online sales of medicine.
Mukul Majmudar, chief executive of CureCompanion, which
developed the online platform Metiboba used, said the
Texas-based company had seen a 12-fold increase in business in
Africa this year from 2019.
That compares with a 10-fold rise in online medicine across
all seven countries - Armenia, Honduras, India, Saudi Arabia,
United Arab Emirates and the United States, as well as Nigeria -
where it is present.
Helium Health, a Nigerian company that specialises in
digitising medical records, brought forward to February the
launch of its online consultation platform, which had been
planned for later in the year, to meet demand resulting from the
pandemic.
In May, it raised $10 million from investors, including
Chinese technology giant Tencent (HK:0700) Helium Health's CEO Adegoke Olubusi said dozens of hospitals
and clinics had subscribed to the service.
They include a private clinic in the Victoria Island
business district of Lagos.
It is run by doctor Ngozi Onyia, who said she had signed up
for a 150,000 naira ($394.22) monthly subscription with Helium
Health and that most of the clinic's patients had opted for
online consultations, referred to as telemedicine, within weeks
of Nigeria's first cases of the novel coronavirus.
The online consultations cost 10,000 naira each - half the
cost of an in-person examination.
"This kept us going - we held on to our patients and even
gained new ones," Onyia said.
PRIVATE FUNDING, GOVERNMENT USE
Even before the pandemic, public health experts and
investors saw the potential for telemedicine to help Africa
cater for the needs of rapidly-expanding populations.
Funding from development agencies and venture capitalists
alike has flowed into tech companies providing healthcare in
Africa.
Data from San Francisco-based investment firm Partech showed
venture capital investment in Africa's health tech companies
grew to $189 million in 2019 from around $20 million in both
2017 and 2018. Even in the turmoil of the pandemic, some $97
million was raised in the first half of 2020, Partech said.
Of last year's total, $69 million was spread across 12
deals and $120 million went to Zipline, a Californian drone firm
that launched in Rwanda in 2016.
It estimates that its drones, carrying medical equipment,
can reach 95% of the mountainous East African country from two
distribution centres.
In 2019 it expanded into Ghana, where the government
enlisted it during lockdown in May to deliver coronavirus test
samples, vaccines and protective clothing, such as gloves.
"It became very handy during this pandemic where we needed
to send samples quickly to testing centres," Nsiah-Asare, health
adviser to Ghana's president said.
The government is in talks with Zipline about expanding its
operations in Ghana by creating three new distribution centres
in addition to the four Zipline already operates there,
Nsiah-Asare and the company's country director Daniel Marfo told
Reuters.
The government in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country,
has also seen the potential for high tech help.
Authorities in the capital Abuja contracted the charitable
arm of eHealth Africa to roll out a system that alerts patients
who test negative for the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19
with an automated text message.
Those who test positive for the coronavirus require medical
help and contact-tracing, but for negative tests, a message is
enough.
Chikwe Ihekweazu, who heads the Nigeria Centre for Disease
Control (NCDC), said automating the process would help
authorities handle increased testing after the resumption of
international flights from Sept. 5.
"Almost everything we're doing right now, from logistics to
managing the outbreak itself, is being migrated into different
technological platforms," Ihekweazu said.
ECONOMIC CRISIS
For all the potential for technology to help, it is likely
to be constrained as the COVID-19 pandemic adds to Africa's
economic problems.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast a 3.2%
contraction in sub-Saharan Africa's gross domestic product in
2020.
In addition, the pandemic has put around 20 million jobs at
risk across the continent, the African Union has said, which
will reduce people's ability to spend on healthcare.
Already Africa spends less on healthcare than the rest of
the world.
It makes up 16% of the world's population and carries 23% of
the global disease burden, but accounted for just 1% of total
global health expenditure in 2015, according to the most
recently available data provided by the Brookings Institution, a
Washington-based think tank.
In per capita terms, the rest of the world spends 10 times
more, it said.
The widespread adoption of health technology may also be
stymied by poor internet connectivity and patchy electricity.
Metiboba switches between two network providers to overcome
connectivity problems.
It's an approach that is too costly for many, but for
Metiboba it means she has continued to use remote consultations
since her son's health scare and plans to continue to do so.
"It works for me," she said.