Sudan’s health authorities are turning to artificial intelligence to bolster health systems after dozens of doctors were killed in the country’s nearly two-year civil war, according to a senior official.
Sudan’s health system is collapsing from shortages of medical supplies, the loss of doctors and damaged or looted medical facilities, particularly in hard-to-reach conflict zones, the World Health Organization has warned.
Al-Moghirah Al-Amin Gad Al-Sayed, director of the therapeutic medicine department at the Federal Ministry of Health in Sudan, told SciDev.Net: “In conflicts, artificial intelligence can play a big role when traditional medical services are not available.
In areas where there isn’t a doctor available to examine an X-ray, for example, artificial intelligence can be used to match a patient’s image with thousands of stored images and provide a diagnosis, he explained.
Many studies have proven this [AI] it shows great accuracy in medical diagnosis as a result of the data on which it has been trained, as well as the summary of human experiences and experiences that have fed into it.”
Al-Moghirah Al-Amin Gad Al-Sayed, Director, Department of Therapeutic Medicine at the Federal Ministry of Health, Sudan
The migration of doctors has been a problem for Sudan even before the start of a war in which 50 medical personnel were killed in attacks on health centers by the paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF), according to Al-Sayed.
The absence of medical staff and supplies also fuels antimicrobial resistance — where drugs are no longer effective against disease-causing bacteria — as patients turn to antibiotics indiscriminately, Al-Sayed says. This could create a “generation of resistant microbes” and the loss of one of the most powerful weapons in medicine, he warns.
Al-Sayed says AI can “help a lot” in compensating for the absence of medical personnel in conflict zones, but stresses that additional health workers are also urgently needed, along with supplies of medicine and medical devices.
More broadly, innovation in health care delivery, such as using neutral agents to deliver vaccinations in conflict zones, is also critical as traditional methods of service delivery erode, he believes.
Forgotten war
The international media has failed to highlight the plight of the Sudanese people, laments Al-Sayed: “The world sympathizes with the ugliness of Israeli crimes against children in Gaza, which have been highlighted by the international media, while in Sudan we have thousands stories that are more horrific, but don’t get the same attention.”
Violence against women is widespread among these atrocities, forcing many families to flee. More than 11.5 million people have been displaced since violent clashes broke out between the RSF and the Sudanese armed forces in April 2023, according to the UN.
“The RSF traditionally attack women wherever they enter, as a signal to families to leave the area, so these attacks are the main reason for the migration of Sudanese families,” Al-Sayed explained.
Extreme weather events linked to climate change have also exacerbated the effects of the conflict, putting pressure on sanitation services and fueling the spread of disease, he added.
Months of torrential rain and flooding that began last June have killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of homes. The UN said the rains had worsened an already critical health situation, resulting in further displacement, cholera outbreaks and widespread scorpion and snake infestations in some states.
“MSF [Médecins Sans Frontières/ Doctors Without Borders] is a key partner in running hospitals in safe areas, helping to provide services in conflict zones, but needs more support from donors to be able to provide more supplies,” Al-Sayed added.
