BREAKING: African Medical Center Of Excellence Set To Reverse Medical Tourism In Nigeria, Says CEO Brian Deaver
The CEO of the African Medical Centre of Excellence (AMCE), Brian Deaver, has said the centre’s ultimate goal is not just to reduce outbound medical tourism from Africa—but to reverse it entirely.
Speaking during an interview with ARISE NEWS, he said, “Not only will we reduce the amount of outbound medical tourism, but we want to reverse it. We want to see people coming from Europe, the US, China, and India—to Abuja. We want to see them coming here because of the expertise and technology and research that we’ve done here.”
The AMCE, located in Abuja, Nigeria, is a partnership between Afrexim Bank and London’s King’s College Hospital. It is the first of five planned state-of-the-art medical centres across the continent, designed to close critical gaps in care—particularly for non-communicable diseases like cancer and sickle cell anaemia. The centre also aims to make advanced healthcare more geographically and financially accessible to millions of Africans.
Africa’s healthcare crisis is currently measured in both lives lost and resources drained. Nearly 9 million cancer-related deaths occur globally each year, most of them in low-income nations. At the same time, the continent loses approximately $10 billion annually to outbound medical tourism as patients seek treatment abroad.
Deaver says the AMCE’s success will also be measured by its impact on local communities: “As we look out five years from now, I want to be able to report that hundreds of families have been relieved because their family member who suffered from sickle cell, they’ve been cured. And then outside of that, it just stays with the people.
Beyond saving lives, the AMCE hopes to strengthen Africa’s health systems by investing in people. “We want to develop our people. We want to develop health care leaders. We want to develop health care professionals, clinicians and otherwise. And so we want to see a net increase there as well,” Deaver added.
As Africa faces rising health demands and limited capacity, initiatives like the AMCE represent a bold step toward home-grown solutions, medical self-reliance, and lasting change.
