Cause
AI for Healthcare Access
medical deliveries by Zipline's AI-guided drones in Africa
19 reported stories
Healthcare is where AI has the most stories with hard numbers: screening eyes, lungs and newborn cries where there is no specialist, catching sepsis hours earlier, delivering blood by drone, and predicting protein structures for neglected diseases. This is the largest section on the site.
Google Health's AI detects diabetic retinopathy from smartphone photos in Indian clinics where no eye specialist has ever practiced. Zipline drones have delivered over 1 million medical packages across Rwanda and Ghana, using AI to navigate weather and terrain. PathAI is helping pathologists catch cancers they would have missed, with accuracy rates matching the world's top specialists.
Stories
Healthcare · 7 min read
A Smartphone App is Restoring Sight Across Kenya and Botswana
Peek Vision turns any smartphone into a clinical grade vision test. Health workers have screened hundreds of thousands of people in Kenya and Botswana.
Healthcare · 7 min read
Zzapp Malaria Uses AI to Drain the Swamp Mosquitoes Breed In
Zzapp Malaria's AI predicts where mosquitoes will breed and plans larviciding that cut malaria cases by 52.5 percent in São Tomé and Príncipe.
Healthcare · 7 min read
DeepRare Diagnoses Rare Diseases Faster Than Doctors Can
DeepRare, published in Nature in 2026, ranks rare disease diagnoses from symptoms and DNA data and beat experienced physicians on 6,401 test cases.
Healthcare · 8 min read
The AI That Catches Sepsis Hours Before Doctors Do
Johns Hopkins' TREWS machine learning system monitored 590,000 patients, caught sepsis hours earlier, and cut patients' risk of death by 20 percent.
Healthcare · 7 min read
Simprints Uses Fingerprints and AI to Prove Vaccines Reach the Right People
Simprints builds open source biometric ID tools that link fingerprints and faces to health records, verifying 551,000 vaccine doses and treatments in 2024.
Healthcare · 7 min read
RAD-AID Is Bringing AI Radiology to Hospitals That Have No Radiologists
RAD-AID International pairs AI tools for chest X-rays and mammography with training and infrastructure so low income hospitals can use them safely.
Healthcare · 8 min read
AI Can Predict Alzheimer's Years Before Doctors Could
Cambridge researchers built a model over 80 percent accurate at predicting which patients with mild cognitive impairment will get Alzheimer's.
Healthcare · 7 min read
AI Ultrasound Is Reaching Mothers Who Never Had a Scan
Philips AI guided ultrasound programs in Kenya help nurses and midwives capture and read pregnancy scans in communities where most maternal deaths occur.
Healthcare · 6 min read
An AI Doctor in Your Pocket That Monitors You 24/7
Prana is building an AI primary care doctor on your phone that monitors health signals continuously and catches problems before they become emergencies.
Healthcare · 6 min read
Beacon Health is Putting Value-Based Primary Care on Autopilot
Beacon Health uses AI agents to automate the administrative work that overwhelms primary care clinics, so doctors can focus on patients instead of paperwork.
Healthcare · 7 min read
A Tiny Retinal Implant is Restoring Sight to the Blind
Science Corp built a brain computer interface that stimulates cells in the eye, helping blind patients see again. Over 40 people have received it in trials.
Healthcare · 6 min read
Zipline's Drones Have Delivered a Million Medical Packages in Africa
How AI-guided drones are transforming healthcare delivery in Rwanda and Ghana, reaching clinics that roads cannot.
Healthcare · 8 min read
AlphaFold Predicted 200 Million Protein Structures
DeepMind's AlphaFold database of 200 million protein structures serves 3 million researchers, and a DNDi partnership targets neglected diseases like Chagas.
Healthcare · 7 min read
A $2,000 Ultrasound Probe is Saving Mothers in Africa
Butterfly Network's handheld ultrasound, in over 1,000 clinics and paired with AI guidance, trained 1,050 providers and helped cut maternal deaths 20.6%.
Healthcare · 7 min read
India's Snakebite Crisis Meets Its Match: AI-Designed Antivenom
Healthcare · 7 min read
ARDA Screened One Million Patients for Blindness Risk
Google's ARDA has screened over a million patients for diabetic retinopathy in India, Thailand and Australia, where retina specialists are scarce.
Healthcare · 7 min read
An AI That Hears Birth Asphyxia in a Baby's Cry
Ubenwa analyzes a newborn's cry on a smartphone to detect birth asphyxia in seconds, a condition that kills roughly one million babies a year.
Healthcare · 7 min read
AI is Finding Tuberculosis in Rural South Africa
Qure.ai's qXR screens thousands of people for TB in South African mobile clinics, reading chest X-rays in under a minute and catching cases readers miss.
Healthcare · 7 min read
Zipline: 1.8 Million Deliveries and a $150M Expansion
Zipline has completed 1.8 million autonomous drone deliveries, cut maternal deaths by 56% in served areas, and is expanding to 15,000 facilities.
Questions people ask
How is AI used in healthcare in Africa?
Mostly to put a specialist's judgement where there is no specialist: tuberculosis screening from chest X-rays in South Africa, handheld ultrasound reads for mothers who never had a scan, newborn cry analysis in Nigeria, eye screening by smartphone in Kenya and Botswana, and drone delivery of blood and vaccines in Rwanda and Ghana. Each has a story on this page.
Where is AI used in healthcare?
Screening and diagnosis, early warning in hospitals, logistics and delivery, drug and protein research, and primary care administration. The stories here cover one project per use with its published results.