Apollo Hospitals signs pact to set up 30 telemedicine units in Africa

NEW DELHI: Healthcare major Apollo Hospitals today said it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with AfroIndia Medical Services to set up 30 telemedicine units in East and West Africa.

Commenting on the development, Apollo Hospitals Chairman Prathap C Reddy said: "Apollo's MOU with AfroIndia Medical services will pave way for availability of tertiary and quaternary health care to a large number of patients resulting in cost, effort and time benefit".

AfroIndia Medical Services is an integrated medical service provider with a mandate of facilitating quality medical care to patients in Africa through their network of over 1500 partner multi-speciality hospitals.

The telemedicine centers will facilitate the doctors in several African countries to interact with specialists at Apollo.

"A unique feature of this service is the provision of electronic virtual house visits and remote domiciliary care," Apollo Hospitals said in a statement.

"Through the Apollo system, we will now have virtual access to world class health care at affordable rates using cutting edge technology," Afroindia Medical Services President and CEO Alexander said on the development.

The first three units at Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja in Nigeria were inaugurated today by Reddy through video conferencing, Apollo Hospitals said.

Centres will also be set up at Ibadan, Warri, Kano, and Onitsha in Nigeria, the company added.

Apollo Hospitals currently has over 8,500 beds across 54 hospitals, more than 1200 pharmacies and over 60 primary care clinics.

Shares of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise today closed at Rs 674.60 on BSE, up 2.71 per cent from its previous close.