AI in One Health Infectious Disease Studies in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review

Sub-Saharan Africa is the focus of this systematic review synthesizing evidence from 62 peer-reviewed studies on the application of artificial intelligence (AI) for infectious disease research. The review, authored by Bruno Enagnon Lokonon and last updated in April 2026, analyzes the growth of AI adoption, prevalent diseases studied, and implementation gaps within a One Health framework.

Use Cases

• Analyzing trends in AI adoption for infectious disease research based on the review of 62 studies from 2019-2024.
• Identifying research gaps in zoonotic and environmental disease integration based on the reported underrepresentation in the reviewed literature.
• Comparing the performance of different AI modelling techniques based on the reported median accuracy metrics for specific architectures.
• Assessing geographic disparities in research leadership based on the identified concentration of studies in South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania.

Strengths

• Systematic methodology covering 62 peer-reviewed studies provides a structured evidence base.
• Includes specific performance metrics, such as a median accuracy close to 100% for Convolutional Neural Network models mentioned in the results.
• Clearly quantifies disease focus, reporting Malaria (24%), HIV (12%), COVID-19 (12%), and Tuberculosis (6.7%) as the most frequently targeted.

Limitations

• The dataset is a 16.3 KB DOCX document, indicating a very limited textual summary rather than a primary data collection.
• Row count and column-level documentation are absent; the actual reviewed study data is not provided for re-analysis.
• Data may reflect publication bias inherent to the systematic review's source selection from figshare.

Provenance

Source

Bruno Enagnon Lokonon

Collection Method

Systematic review of peer-reviewed literature.

Time Range

Studies reviewed up to 2024, with noted surge in publications from 2021-2024.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-22 05:46:46; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Sub-Saharan Africa, with specific mention of South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania.