Casablanca: Casablanca hosted on Monday the first GITEX Future Health Africa Morocco, bringing together key healthcare stakeholders and leading international brands to showcase the growing interest of major global players in Morocco’s and Africa’s healthcare markets.
According to Agence Marocaine De Presse, the event gathered 200 brands, including AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Sanofi, NUMIH, and Elekta, alongside public and private health actors from nearly 30 countries. Participants convened around the theme: “Digitising Africa’s Healthcare Future: Essential Care Advancing With AI.”
Health Minister Amine Tehraoui, who launched the event, described healthcare as a “global and strategic market,” noting that Africa is witnessing the simultaneous acceleration of infrastructure development, the digital industry, and financing. In his opening address, he observed that “technology is advancing much faster than we are.”
Epidemiological algorithms capable of anticipating outbreaks before traditional surveillance systems, the widespread deployment of telemedicine to overcome geographic barriers, diagnostic support tools designed to offset medical shortages in underserved areas, and AI increasingly assisting in complex procedures, from local health centers to university hospitals, were all highlighted by the government official as tangible areas of challenge.
“Africa has everything it takes to build its own health sovereignty,” he emphasized, calling for stronger coordination to jointly develop an African market for medicines and medical devices, pool vaccine production, and establish shared epidemiological systems.
For the minister, one of the key objectives of this event is to provide Africa with a platform for action, “a space where startups, industry players, investors, and public decision-makers come together around the same projects.”
For his part, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, thanked Morocco for “its leadership and partnership as we work together toward the Africa we all want – a healthier, safer, fairer, and sovereign Africa.”
In a video message delivered on the occasion, the WHO chief noted that digital technologies, particularly AI, are powerful tools for building resilient, equitable, and efficient health systems.
“What matters most is how these tools are designed and deployed,” he said, advocating for solutions that meet real needs, data systems that preserve trust, technologies that support, rather than replace, health professionals, and investments that strengthen national capacities and regional cooperation.
He also affirmed that the WHO stands ready to support countries in harnessing digital transformation to serve public health goals, improve access and quality, and enhance preparedness for the future.
Following the GITEX Future Health Africa Executive Summit that opens the first day’s program, the forum will continue on May 5 and 6 with the Future Health Congress, structured around the Future Hospitals Forum and the Future Care Forum.
As a hub dedicated to global health innovation organizations, GITEX Future Health Africa Morocco hosts international brands showcasing digital and medical technologies through a world-class exhibition and summit. The event will thus help accelerate the continent’s transition toward integrated, interoperable, and data-driven health systems.
Held under the High Patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, the event is organized under the aegis of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, in strategic partnership with the Mohammed VI Foundation for Sciences and Health, and led by KAOUN International, the global organizer of GITEX events.