Cervical cancer kills roughly 350,000 women every year, and about 90% of those deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries.
The disease is almost entirely preventable, yet the average screening coverage in sub-Saharan Africa is around 4%, and most screening still relies on a low-performance test. The WHO’s target for elimination by 2030 requires reaching 70% of women with a high-performance test, twice in their lifetimes.
No country in the region is close.
That is the gap a new request for proposals is trying to close, and it’s a clear opportunity for digital health innovators working in LMIC contexts.
The Opportunity
The Clinton Health Access Initiative is inviting proposals for the late-stage development, validation, regulatory approval, manufacturing scale-up, and commercialization of AI-enabled assisted cervical visual triage (AI-ACVT) solutions.
The aim is to put at least one quality-assured, regulator-approved, affordable AI-ACVT tool into wide use across the African region.
AI-ACVT tools work on a smartphone or tablet. A frontline health worker captures an image of the cervix during a standard pelvic exam, and the model returns a positive or negative result during the same encounter, with no internet connection required.
In a recent five-country prospective study, an AI-based tool showed sensitivity of 60.1% for detecting CIN2+ lesions, compared with 36.6% for naked-eye visual inspection with acetic acid.
Funding and Eligibility
Selected partners can receive $700,000 in milestone-based catalytic funding. Co-investment is strongly encouraged because the available funding is expected to cover only a portion of total development and commercialization costs.
Eligible applicants include organizations with demonstrated capability in AI-enabled medical device development, regulatory approval, and deployment. Partnerships and consortiums are encouraged.
Prior LMIC experience is not strictly required, but applicants need to show they can operate effectively in those contexts, directly or through partners.
Key expectations include:
- Offline functionality and same-encounter results at the point of care.
- Prospective validation in real-world clinical settings, plus external validation on independent datasets. Retrospective, single-site, or non-representative validation will not be sufficient.
- A regulatory strategy aligned with IMDRF frameworks such as EU MDR/IVDR or FDA pathways, with target approval by the end of 2027.
- Pricing models built for affordability and transparency, with a credible path to multi-country scale-up within 24 months of market introduction.
The initial geographic focus is Africa. Deployments in other LMIC regions, including Southeast Asia, are in scope if applicants can show a credible expansion strategy following African introduction.
Apply Now: deadline is June 9, 2026
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