New hospitals, pharmaceutical production and cross-border investment are intended to keep more African patients on the continent
Africa is seeking to reduce its dependence on healthcare abroad by investing more heavily in hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturing and medical technology across the continent. The strategy could also reshape medical tourism, keeping a larger share of African patients within Africa and creating new regional destinations for specialized treatment.
Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama made the case for a more self-sufficient African healthcare economy at the Alamein Africa Forum in Egypt. Rather than regarding healthcare primarily as public expenditure, he called for governments and investors to treat it as an economic sector capable of generating jobs, industrial development and greater financial security.
“Health is not a charitable cost. It is an investable, high-growth economic sector,” Mahama said.
The implications extend beyond national healthcare systems. As African countries expand specialist treatment capacity, patients who currently travel to destinations outside the continent could increasingly find comparable services closer to home.
Outbound medical travel costs Africa billions
One of the clearest examples is the African Medical Centre of Excellence in Abuja, Nigeria. Developed by Afreximbank in partnership with King's College Hospital London, the specialist medical facility is intended to address complex conditions that frequently prompt African patients to seek treatment abroad.
Mahama linked the development directly to an estimated $6 billion that Africa loses annually through outbound medical tourism.
Facilities of this kind could gradually alter established patient flows. Instead of travelling to Europe, Asia or the Middle East for specialized procedures, more patients could receive treatment within Africa. At the same time, major centres serving several countries could stimulate intra-African medical travel.
This would turn healthcare investment into a tourism and mobility issue as well as a public health priority.
A continental healthcare market of 1.4 billion people
Mahama argued that the African Continental Free Trade Area could provide the scale required to develop a competitive healthcare industry.
“The African Continental Free Trade Area and African manufacturing plants do not serve a single country of 10 or 30 million. It serves a single unified market of 1.4 billion consumers,” he said.
The approach includes pharmaceutical manufacturing as well as medical services. Africa currently imports more than 70 percent of its pharmaceuticals and almost 99 percent of its vaccines, according to figures cited by Mahama.
Reducing that dependency could make treatment more affordable while improving access to medicines and strengthening the supply chains needed by hospitals seeking to compete for patients regionally.
The potential market is also expanding rapidly. Africa's population is expected to reach around 2.5 billion by 2050, adding further pressure to develop healthcare capacity locally.
Egypt and Nigeria demonstrate different models
Mahama highlighted Egypt as an example of how domestic medical capabilities can be expanded. The country dramatically reduced hepatitis C prevalence through large-scale treatment, technology transfer and domestic pharmaceutical production.
Nigeria is following a different path with the African Medical Centre of Excellence, building specialist clinical capacity that could reduce the need for patients to leave the continent.
Together, such developments point towards a broader African healthcare ecosystem in which individual countries and medical centres can develop specialist expertise and serve patients from neighbouring markets.
For medical tourism, this could be significant. Africa has traditionally been an important source market for international hospitals, particularly for complex procedures unavailable or difficult to access domestically. Expanding specialist centres within the continent could redirect part of that demand towards regional healthcare hubs.
Private capital sought for healthcare expansion
Governments alone will not be able to finance the required transformation, Mahama said. He called for greater participation by private investors, commercial banks, sovereign funds and industrial developers.
Healthcare investment can generate economic benefits beyond patient treatment through pharmaceutical production, medical technology, research, skilled employment and supporting services.
The workforce remains a major challenge. According to WHO figures cited by Mahama, Africa faces a shortage of around six million healthcare workers while almost one million trained healthcare professionals and science graduates remain unemployed.
Closing that gap will be essential if new hospitals and specialist centres are to attract patients across national borders.
HINGE aims to lower barriers to health investment
A new initiative announced at the forum could support this process. Mahama presented the Health Investment and National Gateway Enabler, or HINGE, as a digital platform designed to streamline regulation, clinical validation and commercialization for healthcare innovators and investors.
The platform is being developed with the African Medicines Agency, Institut Pasteur and AfroChampions.
For healthcare providers and investors, reducing regulatory fragmentation could make it easier to introduce technologies and develop services across several African markets rather than operating within isolated national systems.
Combined with the AfCFTA, such initiatives could ultimately support a more integrated continental healthcare market.
From outbound patients to regional medical hubs
The development of advanced hospitals and stronger healthcare industries will not eliminate outbound medical travel. Highly specialized cases will continue to cross continents, while patients will still choose international providers according to expertise, cost and availability.
But the balance could change.
If African countries succeed in expanding specialist medicine, diagnostics, pharmaceutical production and healthcare infrastructure, a larger proportion of the continent's medical travel could take place within Africa itself.
For a continent of 1.4 billion people, health sovereignty could therefore have another consequence: the emergence of a much larger intra-African medical tourism market.
Image Credit: © AI generated illustration
