  The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted the world, having taken the
lives of over 6 million individuals. Accordingly, this pandemic has caused a
shift in conversations surrounding the burden of diseases worldwide, welcoming
insights from multidisciplinary fields including digital health and artificial
intelligence. Africa faces a heavy disease burden that exacerbates the current
COVID-19 pandemic and limits the scope of public health preparedness, response,
containment, and case management. Herein, we examined the potential impact of
transformative digital health technologies in mitigating the global health
crisis with reference to African countries. Furthermore, we proposed
recommendations for scaling up digital health technologies and artificial
intelligence-based platforms to tackle the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 and
enable equitable vaccine access. Challenges related to the pandemic are
numerous. Rapid response and management strategies - that is, contract tracing,
case surveillance, diagnostic testing intensity, and most recently vaccine
distribution mapping - can overwhelm the health care delivery system that is
fragile. Although challenges are vast, digital health technologies can play an
essential role in achieving sustainable resilient recovery and building back
better. It is plausible that African nations are better equipped to rapidly
identify, diagnose, and manage infected individuals for COVID-19, other
diseases, future outbreaks, and pandemics.
