Support Rural Clinicians in Zambia to Save Lives

Thank you to everyone who continues to support the Expansion of the Virtual Doctors in Zambia project through GlobalGiving.

While fundraising through this platform has been modest so far, your support remains an important part of helping us raise awareness and sustain this vital work. Thanks to funding from a range of partners and donors, the Virtual Doctors programme has continued to grow and strengthen across Zambia, while also expanding our reach into Malawi.

In Zambia, the service continues to support clinicians working in some of the country’s most remote and under-resourced health facilities, giving them access to timely clinical advice from experienced UK volunteer doctors and Zambia doctors through our telemedicine platform. In 2025 alone, clinicians submitted 3,277 cases through the platform - a 27% increase on the previous year - demonstrating the growing reliance on the service and its value in strengthening frontline healthcare delivery.

We also continued to strengthen the sustainability of the model by onboarding 80 additional Zambia-based doctors, increasing local ownership and improving responsiveness for clinicians seeking support. Alongside this, 79 new clinics joined the service across Zambia, further extending access to remote clinical expertise.

An exciting development has been our renewed expansion into Malawi, where we have partnered with the Health Informatics Association of Malawi to relaunch the Virtual Doctors service, laying the groundwork to support 100 clinicians as the programme grows there.

Beyond case management, the programme continues to build clinical confidence and improve patient care through innovation and education. This includes the rollout of our enhanced mobile app and initiatives such as the Arclight project, which equips clinicians in low-resource settings with better diagnostic tools for eye and ENT conditions.

Every consultation supported through Virtual Doctors helps reduce unnecessary referrals, lower patient transport costs, and ensure that more patients can receive quality care closer to home.

Thank you for being part of this journey. With continued support, we can expand this impact further across Zambia and Malawi, ensuring that geography is never a barrier to quality healthcare.

The Virtual Doctors Team