The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Samuel Kaba Akoriyea, has assured the public that no health data has been lost following the nationwide shutdown of the Service’s electronic health information systems over an outstanding cloud hosting bill of US$64,510.95.
The disruption, which began on October 29, 2026, followed the deactivation of all 10 servers hosting the GHS platforms by its cloud service provider, Akamai, rendering several critical digital health systems inaccessible to health facilities and administrators across the country.
In an internal memorandum, Dr Akoriyea said the shutdown had not compromised the security or integrity of the Service’s information.
“There has been no security breach, and no data has been lost. Nightly encrypted backups of every system are held outside the suspended account and are current to 29th October 2026,” he stated.
Among the affected platforms is the District Health Information Management System (DHIMS2), the country’s primary health information reporting platform. Other affected systems include the Planning and Budget Management Information System (PBMIS), eTracker, the HIV and tuberculosis trackers, the Non-Communicable Disease tracker and the National Malaria Data Repository.
The disruption has also affected the exchange of birth notification information between the GHS, the National Identification Authority and the Births and Deaths Registry.
However, some Android-based applications remain operational offline, allowing health workers to continue capturing information locally for subsequent upload.
“Android tracker users continue capturing data offline for upload once service returns,” the memorandum stated.
Facilities directed to use paper records
To prevent gaps in national health reporting, Dr Akoriyea has directed health facilities and district health administrations to temporarily revert to paper-based record-keeping.
Facilities are expected to maintain manual registers and complete monthly summary forms to preserve health information for October and November 2026. The accumulated records will be uploaded into DHIMS2 once access is restored.
GHS seeks US$64,510 to restore systems
The Director-General outlined two options for restoring the affected platforms.
The first involves settling the outstanding US$64,510.95 bill to reactivate the existing Akamai account, which would allow the systems to resume operations without rebuilding them.
The second option involves procuring new servers and restoring the platforms from existing backups, a process that could take up to six weeks after the required infrastructure is secured.
Dr Akoriyea said the Service was pursuing approval for the payment and engaging Akamai to expedite restoration.
Beyond the immediate recovery efforts, the GHS is considering migrating its digital health infrastructure to a Ghana-based hosting provider.
“Once services are restored, the Service will plan any move to a Ghana-based provider as a controlled project. That project will include a parallel run and a funded backup arrangement,” he stated.
