The deployment of accessible healthcare systems in Africa is a priority for a rapidly changing continent, whose future depends on the vitality of its population. Can innovation facilitate access to healthcare for all? This is one of the questions that will be explored at the Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank, which will be held on 26-30 May 2025, in Abidjan, on the theme: “Making Africa’s Capital Work Better for Africa’s Development”.

DataPathology is a young African company that embodies the ambition of technological progress for the benefit of the greatest number. By applying artificial intelligence and the digitisation of medical data, this Moroccan start-up is revolutionising the diagnosis of cervical cancer, a disease that is too often detected too late. DataPathology has made faster, more accurate screening possible and accessible for a larger number of patients, taking another step towards an Africa where technology is an essential lever for development. 

Artificial intelligence against cervical cancer 

A few years ago, the mother of Hicham El Attar, a pathologist in El Jadida, a city in southwestern Morocco, died of cervical cancer, which is the second most common cancer among women. This tragic loss inspired the doctor to develop an effective and accessible service for practitioners and patients to combat the disease.  

In 2020, Dr El Attar teamed with Mohammed El Khannoussi, an information systems and data consultant, to create DataPathology, a start-up specialising in medical pathology. Combining pathological diagnosis and data digitisation, the company uses artificial intelligence and image processing technologies to analyse tissue samples and accurately detect signs of cancer. 

DataPathology applies state-of-the-art screening systems and a network of connected laboratories to speed up the diagnostic process and reduce the risk of human error, addressing failure to detect and late detection of cervical cancer in patients in Morocco and across the African continent. 

The heart of the firm’s offering is the AI-PAP solution, which uses a medical sampling kit and a digital platform to record, analyse and diagnose test results in one of several laboratories connected to the network. 

Easy to access and use, AI-PAP enables gynaecologists, general practitioners, midwives and laboratory technicians to take samples from patients, increasing the number of people who can be tested. Cervical and vaginal swabs in the kit are used to take samples on site. An associated patient code is then entered on the digital platform developed by DataPathology and the samples are sent for a series of tests, after which the diagnosis is shared with the treating doctor. The whole process takes just two to three days. 

“The platform we use can process up to 250 tests per day, which is an extraordinary increase. In the past, only about 10 cases per day could be processed. We can do this thanks to artificial intelligence and data digitisation,” Dr El Attar explains. 

Working with numerous partners, DataPathology is working to make its screening tests as accessible as possible. “There is both an economic impact and a survival impact, because a screening test that costs USD 100 can save cancer treatment that would cost between USD 5,000 and 20,000. We hope that one day this test will be free,” the doctor adds. 

Before women start screening at the age of 25, vaccination (to prevent cervical cancer linked to human papillomavirus) remains a crucial step. As part of its plan to eliminate cervical cancer by 2030, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has set a target of vaccinating 90% of girls, screening 70% of women of reproductive age and treating 90% of women with established cancer. 

However, although a vaccine exists, diagnosis faces constraints in Africa. According to Dr El Attar, “strategies that involve the public and private sectors, the African Development Bank, private banks and insurance companies - in other words all stakeholders - would be most effective.” 

DataPathology is currently working to set up connected laboratories throughout Morocco, as well as in Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Dakar (Senegal). To support its expansion in Africa, in June 2023, the start-up raised USD 1 million from the Azur Innovation Fund, which is supported by the African Development Bank. 

Hicham El Attar has no doubt about his own mission and the mission of his company. It is “to continue to improve access to quality healthcare and save lives by diagnosing cancer earlier.”