From village birth attendants to herbal healers—Nigeria’s traditional medicine is stepping into the AI era.
A new AI-driven healthcare initiative is set to transform traditional African medicine in Nigeria, bridging the gap between informal care systems and modern technology.
Monte-Sereno Health (MSH), in partnership with the Institute of Public Health at Obafemi Awolowo University, has launched a digital platform designed to connect Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs), standardise traditional medicine practices, and improve access to care using local languages.
The system introduces a full-stack “agentic” healthcare model that digitises frontline services and allows care delivery in Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, and Pidgin English, tackling long-standing language barriers in healthcare access.
Backed by the Wilke Family Foundation, with support from Amazon Web Services and NVIDIA, the initiative aims to support 500–1,000 practitioners and impact up to 25,000 pregnancies.
Organisers say the goal is simple: connect existing community-based healthcare systems and enhance them with AI—bringing modern efficiency to age-old practices.
If successful, it could redefine how millions of Nigerians access both traditional and digital healthcare.
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