General News
Achieving Better Patient Outcomes with Artificial Intelligence
By Dr.Simon Kos, Microsoft Chief Medical Officer
Nurse Florence Nightingale may be most well-known as the British Army’s lady with the lamp, assiduously conducting night rounds and attending to the wounded by candle light.
But by demonstrating the link between poor sanitary conditions and high mortality rates in hospitals, it was her pioneering use of data collection and visualisation that still resonates today.
In 2018, medicine faces a different set of challenges, with longer life expectancies and population growth increasing the number of patients suffering with chronic conditions requiring ongoing care.
This has led to the cost of delivering healthcare increasing faster than GDP and quickly becoming unsustainable.
Transforming delivery with data
Over 160 years might have passed since Florence Nightingale’s day, but addressing these challenges still depends on data.
By using it to unlock valuable insights, there’s an incredible opportunity to both accelerate medical breakthroughs and improve patient care.
Over the past decade, a great deal of focus has been on digitizing the sector’s records.
But while this has been a success improving performance from an operational stand point, we’ve yet to see it really transform the way we deliver services to patients.
At present, health is data rich and information poor. By applying cognitive technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) to this data, the sector can shift from traditional reactive treatments to a more proactive health system based on prevention, wellness, faster diagnosis and precision medicine.
Nicholas McQuire, VP, Enterprise Research at analyst firm CCS Insight, sees AI “radically transform the health care industry over the next five years.
AI will bring important improvements in operational effectiveness, care delivery and above all, patient outcomes.
It will also be a vital tool in helping solve some of our most challenging health-related problems, not least how to balance restricted budgets and reduced workforces against the growth of chronic conditions.”
Providing personalized treatment
Evolving approaches to cancer illustrate the way in which AI can revolutionise healthcare across the whole sector.
Historically considered an acute terminal illness, medical knowledge is improving to the point where most cancers are classified as highly treatable conditions.
That said, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) between 30 and 50 percent of cancer deaths could be avoided with prevention, early detection and treatment.
With the total economic impact of cancer costing the global economy over an estimated $1.16 trillion a year, we’re increasingly turning to the power of AI to address this issue, with oncology one of the most advanced areas of precision medicine.
Project InnerEye, used by Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, provides a good example, applying two core branches of AI, machine learning and computer vision, for the analysis of radiological images.
According to a study from TMC, the UK currently has less than five radiologists per 100,000 people, and will struggle to cope with demand for scans in the short, medium and long term.
Designed to identify tumours in a matter of seconds, Project InnerEye can help speed up diagnosis, as well as improve the delivery of treatments like radiotherapy, by providing exact delineation between cancerous tissue and healthy anatomy.
In addition, it promises to provide better monitoring of disease progression during treatments so they can be adjusted in line with how patients respond.
This has the potential to result in more targeted and effective chemotherapy with fewer side effects for patients.
These applications provide us with an opportunity to transition from a predominantly experimental approach to the ability to be incredibly precise.
Advances in genetic medicine now include genome sequencing of individual patients and tumours, allowing personalized diagnosis and treatment.
While progress in this field is encouraging, due to the complex range of genetic mutations responsible for cancer, the specialist skills needed to interpret genome information, and the high volume of new cancer cases each year, it’s not currently scalable to use this for every patient.
This has seen organisations like St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital turn to the cloud to facilitate data sharing with global research communities.
Working with Microsoft Research’s genomics group, computational biologists from the hospital developed an online platform capable of managing vast quantities of anonymised genomic data.
By comparing raw genomic data with reference genomes to identify where they differ, researchers hope to identify the variants responsible for cancers, and make progress toward eventually finding a cure.
Helping patients take control of their care
A key objective of these AI initiatives is minimising unnecessary and costly hospital admissions and readmissions.
Discovering only eight percent of heart surgery patients were following doctor’s orders upon leaving hospital, the Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District (HUS) wanted to tackle this issue head-on by creating a number of online ‘hubs’ for management of remote care plans.
These range from monitoring use of medication and proscribed therapies, to providing virtual consultations with specialists.
HUS believes AI has a central role to play in optimising these kinds of virtual services.
Visa Honkanen, Director of Strategic Development for HUS, explains “At the moment, we have no way of analyzing what’s happening, what’s useful … and how people are accessing and experiencing these services.
By using machine learning to analyze the data, we will be able to direct patients to the right place right away, and also see which of our digital tools work best, abandon the tools that aren’t working, and focus on the most promising ones.”
Ensuring responsible use of AI
While AI presents many benefits for healthcare, there are important considerations that need to be taken into account.
Former Director-General of the WHO Dr Margaret Chan warns “Artificial intelligence is a new frontier for the health sector…The potential of AI in health care is huge, but so is the need to take some precautions”.
From a data management perspective, delivering real value with AI depends on access to a bank of patient information, a sensitive resource that needs to be safeguarded.
The EU’s new GDPR guidelines provide a great benchmark standard to start from, however, medical professionals, regulators and policy makers will need to address the issue of“secondary”uses for health data i.e. usage not relating to the patients direct care.
Ensuring that privacy and data protections are systematically implemented will be vital for continued improvement of healthcare and public health.
At Microsoft, we were the first major cloud provider to incorporate an international code of practice for cloud privacy, ISO/IEC 27018 and we also back those protections with strong contractual commitments.
Like Florence Nightingale founding modern nursing in 19th century, today technology and health care are collaborating to create a modern medical sector fit for the 21st.
These developments will create a hybrid workforce where doctors and AI work together to solve medicine’s greatest challenges.
By helping the public play a more active, informed role in the care relationship, and empowering health professionals with the best information, AI will drive services that are more effective, efficient and accessible than ever before.
Nigeria is experiencing a complex cybersecurity landscape where reported fraud incidents have decreased by nearly 46 percent over the past four years, yet financial losses from cybercrime are on the rise, according to Check Point Software.
This trend is attributed to sophisticated schemes developed by cybercriminals who are increasingly targeting the nation’s rapidly digitizing economy, with further coverage provided by Dark Reading.
Nigeria’s digital transformation has made it a prime target for cybercriminals.
In June 2026, organizations in the country faced an average of 4,361 attempted attacks weekly, ranking it second in Africa for cyber threats.
While the volume of detected threats fluctuates, it consistently remains elevated, often double the global average.
The Nigerian government is developing a new cybersecurity framework, expected later this year, which will mandate incident reporting, set minimum cybersecurity investment levels, and foster public-private collaboration.
Despite a decrease in the number of reported fraud incidents, financial losses have escalated, with digital payment fraud reaching ₦25.85 billion (US$18.7 million) in 2025.
Insider threats, including SIM swap fraud and account compromise, are significant contributors to these losses. Many organizations, particularly smaller businesses, lack adequate training and resources, making them more vulnerable.
The country’s cybersecurity maturity is ranked at a moderate level, and effective enforcement of existing regulations, such as the Data Protection Act, will be crucial to combatting the growing financial impact of cyberattacks.
TotalEnergies, together with its partners Hydra Storage Holding and Reatile Renewables, inaugurates Hydra project, the largest hybrid renewable energy project in Africa, located in South Africa’s Northern Cape province.
The project combines a 216 MW solar photovoltaic plant with a 500 MWh battery energy storage system, marking a significant contribution to the country’s Just Energy Transition program that aims to decarbonise the economy thanks to renewable energy sources.
The facility will supply 75 MW of dispatchable renewable electricity to the national grid continuously between 5:00 a.m. and 9:30 p.m., under a 20-year power purchase agreement signed with Eskom. This represents more than 400 GWh of electricity per year, equivalent to the consumption of approximately 200,000 South African households.
“We are delighted, together with our partners Reatile Renewables and Hydra Storage Holding, to bring the Hydra project into operation. It enables us to supply dispatchable renewable power to the South African grid, thereby strengthening the country’s energy security while decarbonising its electricity generation.
This project reinforces our renewable production capacity in South Africa, the continent’s largest power market in terms of electricity consumption”, said Magali Pailhé, Managing Director of TotalEnergies Southern Africa.
Hydra project has been developed by a consortium composed of TotalEnergies (35%), Hydra Storage Holding (35%) and Reatile Renewables (30%). It is part of the South Africa’s Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme launched by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy.
General News
BOI Pledges to Drive Nigeria’s Cocoa and Dairy Sectors with 70% of its €85m EIB Facility
Bank of Industry (BOI) has secured a €60 million credit facility from the European Investment Bank to fund Nigeria’s cocoa and dairy value addition drive, with a focus on processing, ingredients and chocolate manufacturing.
Dr. Olasupo Olusi, Managing Director/CEO of BOI, disclosed this on Tuesday, during the Africa Cocoa Summit convened in Abuja by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment with the aim of transitioning Africa from exporting raw beans to local processing and branding.
Also known as the Cocoa Value Addition Summit with the theme: ‘From Bean to Brand,’ it was attended by leaders and stakeholders from Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Cameroon who signed the Abuja Declaration to establish the Cocoa Value Addition Alliance (CVAA).
According to Olusi, the €60 million forms part of the €85 million EIB–BOI facility, backed by the European Union under the Global Gateway initiative, and designed specifically to strengthen these critical sectors in Nigeria.
“This agreement reinforces the Bank of Industry’s commitment to unlocking long-term, affordable finance for priority sectors that drive inclusive growth. Approximately 70% of the €85 million financing facility will be channeled to Nigeria’s cocoa and dairy sectors, which BOI considers among the industries with the greatest potential to create jobs and retain foreign exchange earnings.”
“We are particularly focused on cocoa value chains, which provide livelihoods for thousands of Nigerians. Through this initiative, we aim to enhance productivity, value addition, and market linkages that will directly improve the incomes of farmers and processors,” he said.
The BOI MD said that the bank would prioritise lending to processors, cooperatives, and MSMEs that add value locally, rather than only to traders exporting raw beans, adding that the era of celebrating volume of raw exports must end, as Nigeria loses billions by shipping beans and importing finished chocolate. According to him, the goal is to create factories around cocoa communities so that value, jobs, and taxes remain in Nigeria.
However, Olusi noted that financing alone is not enough, and as such, BOI will complement the loans with technical assistance on compliance, climate standards, and access to the EU market. BOI, he said, will also support farmers and processors to meet the EU Deforestation Regulation and other international environmental and social standards.
Citing BOI’s track record, Olusi said the bank disbursed over ₦164 billion in 2025 to more than 3,500 agro and food-processing businesses. The support financed factories, mills, packhouses, and cold chains, and linked nearly 48,000 smallholder farmers into industrial value chains.
He said the new financing would target the entire ecosystem, from nurseries and farmer cooperatives to grinding plants, ingredient factories, packaging lines, and chocolate manufacturers.
Speaking also at the summit, President Bola Tinubu called for a decisive shift from Africa’s long-standing dependence on exporting raw cocoa beans, urging producing countries to prioritise value addition and capture a larger share of the global chocolate industry’s wealth.
The President who was represented by the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, noted that although Africa accounts for about 70 per cent of global cocoa production, the continent retains only six cents of every dollar generated by the global chocolate industry.
He stressed that Nigeria was committed to processing more of its cocoa locally, expanding chocolate manufacturing, building indigenous brands and competing more effectively in international markets, rather than continuing to export raw cocoa beans.
According to the President, cocoa value addition remains a key component of the Renewed Hope Agenda and the country’s broader industrialisation strategy, and disclosed that investors are developing a 70,000-tonne cocoa processing facility in Shagamu, Ogun State, while Nigeria’s cocoa grinding capacity has already surpassed 120,000 tonnes annually.
Earlier, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, said the summit aligns with the Federal Government’s ambition of building a one-trillion-dollar economy by 2030.
She observed that despite Nigeria’s significant contribution to global cocoa production, the country continues to earn only a small fraction of the value created across the cocoa value chain.
According to Oduwole, the Federal Government is promoting greater value addition through manufacturing incentives, investment promotion and stronger collaboration among relevant institutions.
She added that the government would also deepen market access by leveraging existing trade partnerships and opportunities under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), while encouraging investors to take advantage of regional and global value chains to unlock the sector’s full economic potential.
Also speaking, the Minister of State for Industry, Senator John Owan Enoh, described the summit as another milestone in implementing Nigeria’s Industrial Policy, and announced plans for the establishment of the Cocoa Value Addition Alliance, bringing together Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon, countries that collectively account for about 75 percent of global cocoa production.
According to Enoh, the alliance is designed to strengthen regional cooperation, promote local processing, and enable producing countries to capture greater value from the global cocoa market.
“We are not here to disrupt existing partnerships but to expand them,” he said.
Enoh urged African cocoa-producing nations to move beyond exporting raw beans and instead focus on developing branded cocoa products capable of competing successfully in global markets.
On his part, the Chief Executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr. Ransford Abbey, urged African cocoa-producing countries to deepen domestic processing.
“I am here to support the effort and commit to a joint effort towards increasing value for our hardworking cocoa farmers and our respective economies,” Abbey said.
He said Africa produced about 75 per cent of the world’s cocoa but earned less than 10 per cent of the global chocolate industry’s wealth.
“This system cannot continue. We must shift the paradigm from exporting raw poverty to creating refined wealth right here on the African continent,” he said, adding that stronger regional collaboration, investment and technology transfer will help African countries capture greater value from the global cocoa economy.
The Head of Cooperation of the European Union Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Mr. Massimo De Luca, reiterated the importance of value addition in the cocoa value chain. While expressing the support of the EU, he called on governments of the various countries to ensure they play their part in ensuring that proper framework necessary for the success of the initiative was established and clarified.
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