Health leaders, development partners and diagnostics experts have called for country-led adoption of AI and other technologies to accelerate malaria elimination and maximise available health resources.

The call was made during a high-level event, ‘Smarter Investment, Greater Impact: Harnessing AI to Accelerate Disease Elimination’, held on the margins of UNGA81 in New York. 

The Global Institute for Disease Elimination (GLIDE), the RBM Partnership to End Malaria, and Nigeria co-hosted the event.

Participants examined how AI could support more efficient health investments amid shrinking donor budgets and sustained pressure on development and humanitarian financing. 

They also considered how AI could strengthen disease surveillance, improve decision-making and enable more targeted deployment of interventions against preventable diseases, including malaria, polio and neglected tropical diseases.

Delivering the keynote remarks, health minister Muhammad Ali Pate said countries should determine how to adopt emerging technologies within their health systems.

Mr Pate said malaria-endemic countries understood the context and lived realities of communities affected by the disease.

The minister said such countries should therefore remain at the centre of decisions on technology adoption and disease elimination.

“Malaria-endemic countries must be in the driving seat, whether determining how artificial intelligence and new technologies are applied or strengthening manufacturing and resilient supply chains,” he said.

He said the RBM Partnership’s “Big Push against Malaria” brought partners together around country priorities and connected countries with the expertise, partners, data and resources needed to act. Nigeria accounts for the largest share of the global malaria burden and is implementing the Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative to strengthen primary healthcare and domestic financing.

He said the collaboration between RBM and GLIDE would help translate shared knowledge and innovation into practical, country-led action.

Farida Hosani, GLIDE’s chief executive, said progress toward malaria elimination depended on translating global knowledge and innovation into practical capabilities at country level. Ms Hosani said the partnership with RBM would help connect technical capacity building with a global network of partners supporting country-led action.

She said the collaboration would equip national programmes and public health leaders with the tools, knowledge and partnerships needed to advance disease elimination in ways that reflected their priorities and realities.

The panel discussion, chaired by Sam Macintosh, co-founder of Metli, focused on the investment and implementation conditions required to scale AI-enabled health programmes.

(NAN)