ReviewSmart health (Amsterdam, Netherlands)2021
Towards virtual doctor consultations: A call for the scale-up of telemedicine in sub-Saharan Africa during COVID-19 lockdowns and beyond.
Review in Smart health (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The State of the Art of Telemedicine Implementation Architecture: Rapid Umbrella Review of Systematic Reviews.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Pooled it
- Expanding the Evidence on the Safety and Efficiency of 2-Way Text Messaging-Based Telehealth for Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision Follow-up Compared With In-Person Reviews: Randomized Controlled Trial in Rural and Urban South Africa.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Trial
- Adoption of Telemedicine in African Health Policy in Pre and Post COVID-19 Eras: Innovations, Limitations, Challenges, and Lessons Learned.Health science reports · 2026Article
- Global Evidence on the Sustainability of Telemedicine in Outpatient and Primary Care During the First 2 Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review Using the Nonadoption, Abandonment, Scale-Up, Spread, and Sustainability (NASSS) Framework.Interactive journal of medical research · 2025Review
- The transformative power of telemedicine in delivering effective neurosurgical care in low and middle-income countries: A review.Brain & spine · 2025Review
- Online cognitive testing in Parkinson's disease: advantages and challenges.Frontiers in neurology · 2024Review
- Exploring the transformative role of drone technology in advancing healthcare delivery in Africa; a perspective.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2023Article
- Recommendations for Developing a Telemedicine Strategy for Botswana: A Meta-Synthesis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Experiences on the Utility and Barriers of Telemedicine in Healthcare Delivery in Kenya.International journal of telemedicine and applications · 2023Article
- Virtual healthcare services and digital health technologies deployed during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in South Africa: a systematic review.Global health journal (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2022Review
- Low-Carbon Action in Full Swing: A Study on Satisfaction with Wise Medical Development.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Are we there yet? Unbundling the potential adoption and integration of telemedicine to improve virtual healthcare services in African health systems.Sensors international · 2022Article
- Utility of telemedicine in sub-Saharan Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic. A rapid review.Human behavior and emerging technologies · 2021Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The outbreak of COVID-19 has resulted in adoption and implementation of mitigatory policies, including movement restrictions (lockdowns) to curb its spread. These lockdowns have brought unintended consequences such as increasing the inequalities in health delivery. In the context of these restrictions, telemedicine provides an opportunity for continuation of essential health care provision. This review aimed to map available literature on the current status of telemedicine in sub-Saharan Africa to proffer recommendations for scale up during COVID-19 and beyond. Our review highlighted the lack of meaningful investment in the area. The literature identified resistance to telemedicine, infrastructural barriers, and the lack of policy and budgetary support as main deterrents to current implementation. We recommend the region to leverage on the rapid expansion of internet and telecommunication in addition to adopting a mix of strategies to set up an infrastructure for providing scale up of telemedicine and overcome barriers to implementation. There is an urgent need for policy formulation and the provision of budgetary support through sustainable business models.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.