The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has suspended access to several of its electronic health information systems nationwide after its cloud hosting provider shut down the servers over outstanding payments and administrative issues.
The shutdown, which took effect on October 29, 2026, has affected the District Health Information Management System (DHIMS2), the country’s main platform for collecting and managing health data, as well as several other digital services used by health facilities.
In an internal memo to regional and divisional directors dated November 2, the Director-General of the GHS, Dr Samuel Kaba Akoriyea, said the hosting provider had switched off all 10 servers supporting the affected systems.
He, however, assured health officials that the incident had not resulted in any security breach or loss of 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 DHIMS2, which health facilities use to enter, validate, analyse and generate reports on health information.
The Planning and Budget Management Information System (PBMIS), as well as other platforms for tracking family planning, HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and non-communicable diseases, have also been affected.
The shutdown has further disrupted the exchange of birth notification data between the Ghana Health Service, the National Identification Authority and the Births and Deaths Registry.
Although some Android applications can still operate offline, their web-based services and integration with other systems remain unavailable.
To prevent interruptions in health reporting, Dr Akoriyea has directed health facilities and district offices to return to manual record-keeping.
They have been instructed to complete paper registers and monthly summary forms to ensure that October and November 2026 health data can be entered into DHIMS2 when services are restored.
The Director-General said the Service was considering two options to restore the affected systems.
The first is to settle the outstanding payment and reactivate its existing account with Akamai, which would allow all the systems to return to their previous state without rebuilding them.
The second option involves acquiring new servers and restoring the systems using existing backups. However, this could take up to six weeks after the required server capacity is secured.
Dr Akoriyea disclosed that the GHS was finalising arrangements with Akamai and seeking approval for US$64,510.95 to restore access to the suspended account.
He appealed to the sector minister to help speed up the approval process to enable the Service to restore its digital operations as quickly as possible.
He added that the GHS would consider moving its systems to a Ghana-based hosting provider in the future, but said the process would be carefully planned to avoid further disruptions.
The proposed move, he explained, would include running both systems alongside each other for a period and providing a properly funded backup arrangement.
Source: Gbcghanaonline
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