NAIROBI — Across the African region, health threats are increasingly being detected earlier and measures are being stepped up to protect communities. To further strengthen health emergency preparedness, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa today launched an integrated intelligence system to further narrow the gap between decision-making and life-saving responses.

Preparedness Data Exchange (PDX) is an integrated, AI-enabled intelligence system designed to support early, evidence-based decision-making across the region. Integrate real-time all-hazards risk scoring, International Health Regulations core competency monitoring, primary care readiness indicators, climate information, workforce data, laboratory trends, emergency activity information, and media tracking within a single operational environment.

Rather than analyzing these factors separately, the platform integrates them to generate a unified risk picture that highlights vulnerabilities before they escalate.

PDX reduces the time from signal detection to tailored response. At its core is an embedded artificial intelligence assistant that allows health authorities to query live readiness data in plain language and receive auditable answers with source citations based on verified WHO datasets.

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This platform is designed to enhance, not replace, national systems. Ministries of health and WHO country offices can use PDX to monitor the evolving risk situation, test hypotheses, and inform preparedness measures such as prepositioning supplies, deploying rapid response teams, and strengthening testing capacity. Epidemiologists and disease surveillance personnel will remain at the center of interpretation, and technology will support coordinated action.

“When we talk about AI-powered preparedness, we are not talking about replacing epidemiologists and public health leaders. We are talking about empowering them by using federated learning, integrated surveillance, and high-performance computing to move from reactive to predictive intelligence,” said Dr. Marie Roseline Belizere, WHO Regional Emergencies Director for Africa.

This change reflects the reality facing the African region. Countries are grappling with overlapping disease threats, climate-related dangers, and humanitarian pressures, often with varying analytical capabilities.

Although disease surveillance systems have significantly strengthened over the past decade, preparedness gaps remain as information remains fragmented. Climate alerts, laboratory signals, and community reports may each indicate heightened risk, but if they are not integrated quickly, the window for early action is narrowed.