Sub-Saharan Africa(SSA)has the highest maternal and under-five mortality rates in the world.The advent of the coronavirus disease 2019 exacerbated the region's problems by overwhelming the health systems and affecting access to healthcare through travel restrictions and rechanelling of resources towards the containment of the pandemic.The region failed to achieve the Millenium Development Goals on maternal and child mortalities,and is poised to fail to achieve the same goals in the Sustainable Development Goals.To improve on the maternal and child health outcomes,many SSA countries introduced digital technologies for educating pregnant and nurs-ing women,making doctors'appointments and sending reminders to mothers and expectant mothers,as well as capturing information about patients and their illnesses.However,the collected epidemiological data are not being utilised to inform patient care and improve on the quality,efficiency and access to maternal,neonatal and child health(MNCH)care.To the researchers'best knowledge,no review paper has been published that focuses on digital health for MNCH care in SSA and proposes data-driven approaches to the same.Therefore,this study sought to:(1)identify digital systems for MNCH in SSA;(2)identify the applicability and weaknesses of the dig-ital MNCH systems in SSA;and(3)propose a data-driven model for diverging emerging technologies into MNCH services in SSA to make better use of data to improve MNCH care coverage,efficiency and quality.The PRISMA methodology was used in this study.The study revealed that there are no data-driven models for monitoring pregnant women and under-five children in Sub-Saharan Africa,with the available digital health technologies mainly based on SMS and websites.Thus,the current digital health systems in SSA do not support real-time,ubiquitous,pervasive and data-driven healthcare.Their main applicability is in non-real-time pregnancy moni-toring,education and information dissemination.Unless new and more effective approaches are implemented,SSA might remain with the highest and unacceptable maternal and under-five mortality rates globally.The study proposes feasible emerging technologies that can be used to provide data-driven healthcare for MNCH in SSA,and the recommendations on how to make the transition successful as well as the lessons learn from other regions.

Aims:To identify virtual healthcare services and digital health technologies deployed in South Africa during coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)and the challenges associated with their use.Methods:To determine the status of digital health utilization during COVID-19 in South Africa,the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses model was used to perform a systematic and in-depth critical analysis of previously published studies in well-known and trusted online electronic databases using specific search keywords words that are relevant to this study.We selected published peer-reviewed articles available from the onset of COVID-19 to July 2021.Results:Total of 24 articles were included into this study.This study revealed that South Africa adopted digital technologies such as SMS-based solutions,mobile health applications,telemedicine and telehealth,WhatsApp-based systems,artificial intelligence and chatbots and robotics to provide healthcare services during COVID-19 pandemic.These innovative technologies have been used for various purposes including screening infectious and non-infectious diseases,disease surveillance and monitoring,medication and treatment compliance,creating awareness and communication.The study also revealed that teleconsultation and e-prescription,telelaboratory and telepharmacy,teleeducation and teletraining,teledermatology,teleradiology,telecardiology,teleophthal-mology,teleneurology,telerehabilitation,teleoncology and telepsychiatry are among virtual healthcare services delivered through digital health technologies during COVID-19 in South Africa.However,these smart digital health technologies face several impediments such as infrastructural and technological barriers,organization and financial barriers,policy and regulatory barriers as well as cultural barriers.Conclusion:Although COVID-19 has invigorated the use of digital health technologies,there are still some short-comings.The outbreak of pandemics like COVID-19 in the future is not inevitable.Therefore,we recommend increasing community networks in rural areas to bridge the digital divide and the modification of mHealth pol-icy to advocate for the effective use of innovative technologies in healthcare and the development of sustainable strategies for resources mobilization through private-public partnerships as well as joining available international initiatives advocating for smart digital health.

Emerging digital technologies continues to evolve posing unprecedented opportunities in health systems globally to improve healthcare services delivery.There has been significant progress in healthcare.However,the lack of emotive recognition coupled with a dearth of personalized and pervasive health applications and emotive smart devices calls for the integration of intelligent sensors health systems through emerging technologies.Although there has been significant progress in smart and connected health care,more research innovation,dissemination and technologies are needed to unbundle new opportunities and move towards healthcare 5.0.Healthcare is at the dawn of a paradigm change to reach the new era of smart disease control and detection,virtual care,smart health management,smart monitoring,and decision-making.Therefore,this study discusses the roles and capacities of sensors,their capabilities and other emerging technologies such as nanotechnology,5 G technologies,drone technology,blockchain,robotics,big data,internet of things,artificial intelligence,and cloud computing.Healthcare 5.0 provides healthcare services including patient remote monitoring,tracking and virtual clinics,emotive telemedicine,ambient assisted living,smart self-management,wellness monitoring and control,smart treatment reminders,compliance and adherence,and personalized and connected health care.However,building resilience and robust healthcare 5.0 is not immune to challenges.Organizational challenges,technological and infrastructural barriers,lack of legal and regulatory frameworks and e-health policies,individual perceptions,misalignment with hospitals' strategy,lack of funding,religious and cultural barriers are identified as potential barriers to the successful implementation of healthcare 5.0.Therefore,there is a need for building resilient technology-driven healthcare systems.To achieve this,there is a need for expanding technological infrastructure,provision of budgetary support based on sustainable business models,develop appropriate legal and e-health policies,standardization and synchronization of protocols,improving stakeholders' engagement and involvement and establishment of private and public partnerships and investments.