A KEY aspect of the success attained by President Samia Suluhu Hassan in her recent appointment as the African Union (AU) champion for maternal, newborn and child health was a recognition of Tanzania’s data-driven revolution in life-saving healthcare.

Mahmoud Thabit Kombo, the Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation minister, laid out this profile to the media in Dar es Salaam yesterday on the president recent participation in an AU summit in Addis Ababa.

“The honour was a reflection of the impact of the president’s international engagements and the domestic innovations that have set a new benchmark for the rest of Africa,” he said, underlining impressions made from integration of mobile technology and real-time messaging platforms to create a safety net for expectant mothers.

This initiative, widely known as the ‘mobile mother’ programme can be accessed via basic mobile tools, enabling healthcare providers to track a pregnant woman’s location, monitor her labour stages and identify the nearest facility with the specific services she requires, he explained.

The healthcare innovation involves a system where medics know exactly where an expectant mother is, when she goes into labour and which nearby center is equipped to handle her specific case. If a facility lacks certain supplies, the system immediately reroutes her to a higher-level hospital," the minister noted.

This digital referral system has been so successful in reducing delays—often the leading cause of maternal mortality—that it has already been adopted by seven other African nations, he said, affirming that it is this scalability and practical innovation that served as the primary catalyst for the president’s AU appointment.

The diplomatic recognition is backed by rigorous data as under the president’s leadership, a drastic reduction in maternal and neonatal deaths has been registered, as the strategy focuses on reducing delay in seeking care, delay in reaching a facility, and delay in receiving adequate care.

The first sort of delay is addressed through education and community health workers, the second through the ‘mobile mother‘ emergency transport system and the third through massive infrastructure upgrades, he explained.

The president’s champion status is reinforced by unprecedented budget allocation toward rural health centers and the procurement of specialized medical equipment, as in the past three years, hundreds of emergency obstetric and newborn care (EmONC) facilities have been built, he said.

This has ensured that life-saving surgeries like C-sections are available closer to the village level, he said in the comprehensive breakdown of the factors that propelled the AU recognition of continental health leadership for President Samia. 

Beyond construction, the government has focused on the human resources for health (HRH) pillar, hiring thousands of nurses and midwives to bridge the gap in maternal care, he said.

As AU health champion, the president is now tasked with spearheading the Africa Scorecard on Maternal Health, leading high-level advocacy to ensure that other member states domesticate elements from the successful Tanzanian model, he said.

The president’s leadership shows that maternal health is not just a medical issue but also a development and security issue, as by ensuring that a mother survives childbirth, “we are protecting the very fabric of our economy and society," he added.