Medical tourism in Africa has long operated as a one-way street. Patients from across the continent — from Nairobi and Kampala, from Lusaka and Khartoum — travel to India, Turkey, Thailand or South Africa to access specialist care their own healthcare systems cannot yet provide. Tanzania is now attempting to reverse that flow, and the Tanlink Healthcare Foundation (THF) is at the centre of that effort.
The foundation, which operates both a healthcare advocacy function and a medical tourism agency arm, has spent the past several years working to position Dar es Salaam as a destination rather than a departure point for patients seeking specialist treatment in East and Central Africa. The most visible expression of that ambition is the inaugural Tanzania International Medical Tourism Expo, which took place in Dar es Salaam from March 26 to 28, 2026.
The expo and what it signals
Dr Siraj Mtulia, Director of Tanlink Healthcare Foundation and chairperson of the organising committee, described the initiative as a major milestone. “This is the first medical expo of its kind at this scale,” he said. “While Tanlink initiated the idea, it has now evolved into a multi-stakeholder platform that will benefit the entire nation. The expo is expected to drive healthcare reforms, especially in infrastructure development for medical tourism.”
The event was organised by the Tanlink Healthcare Foundation in close collaboration with Tanzania’s Ministries of Health, Foreign Affairs, and Natural Resources and Tourism, and was projected to attract over 5,000 participants from across Africa and internationally, including healthcare providers, investors, policymakers and patients.
The three-ministry coordination is not incidental. It signals that Tanzania is treating medical tourism not as a niche healthcare initiative but as an economic diversification strategy — one that connects the country’s existing strengths in wildlife tourism, its strategic geography as a gateway to landlocked neighbours, and a healthcare sector that has been receiving sustained investment under President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s administration.
For Dr Fyumagwa Hassan, Managing Director of the Tanlink Medical Tourism Agency, the challenge is as much promotional as operational. “Healthcare under President Hassan’s leadership has made major strides, from infrastructure to specialist care,” he said. “But if these achievements aren’t showcased internationally, their value will remain under-recognised. The expo is our chance to present Tanzania’s healthcare progress to the world.”
The numbers behind the claim
The foundation’s case rests on a trajectory that the data does support. Tanzania’s Minister of Health Jenista Mhagama told parliament in June 2025 that the number of international patients seeking treatment in the country had more than doubled in four years, rising from 5,705 in 2021 to 12,180 by March 2025. Patients were arriving from the Comoros, Malawi, Burundi, Zambia, Rwanda, South Africa, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Egypt and Mauritius.
The pace has accelerated further. Between July 2025 and February 2026 alone, 3,018 patients from outside Tanzania received specialised treatment at the country’s regional, zonal and national hospitals, according to Deputy Minister for Health Florence Samizi, speaking in parliament on April 8, 2026. Samizi highlighted the government’s investment in modern equipment — including PET/CT scanners, Angio Suite systems, Cathlabs and CT scanners — alongside specialist training for health workers to ensure services meet international standards. “The government is introducing advanced medical services, securing international hospital accreditations, and promoting our facilities abroad to attract foreign patients,” she said.
The infrastructure being built around it
The clinical investment is running in parallel with physical infrastructure. New hospital buildings have been constructed and aged facilities renovated to meet modern healthcare standards. The Tanzanian government is investing in human resources through the Samia Health Super-specialization Programme, which sponsors medical professionals for specialist training both domestically and internationally.
The specialisms being developed — oncology, cardiology and orthopaedics — are precisely those that currently push the largest number of East African patients overseas. Tanzania’s ambition is to absorb a portion of that outward flow from its neighbours, positioning Dar es Salaam as a regional hub rather than requiring patients to travel to Mumbai or Istanbul.
Dr Mtulia highlighted Tanzania’s strategic geography as a key structural advantage: “Tanzania already enjoys a strong health infrastructure and a unique geographical advantage as a gateway to East and Central Africa,” he told The Citizen. The country borders eight nations, five of them landlocked, and sits at the intersection of East and Central African patient catchment areas that currently have no comparable regional healthcare destination.
The honest challenges
The expo and the foundation’s work are a start, not an arrival. International accreditation of hospitals — a prerequisite for attracting patients from more demanding markets — remains a work in progress. The government is focusing on international accreditations for hospitals and clinics to ensure they meet the highest standards of care and patient safety, but accreditation processes take years and the number of internationally certified facilities in Tanzania remains limited. The patients currently arriving are overwhelmingly from neighbouring countries where the comparative bar is lower; attracting patients from Europe, the Gulf or further afield requires a different calibre of institutional certification.
Competition is also intensifying. South Africa’s Netcare and Mediclinic networks, Kenya’s Aga Khan University Hospital and Nairobi Hospital, and increasingly ambitious programmes in Rwanda and Ethiopia are all targeting the same regional patient flows. Tanzania’s geographical advantage and lower cost base are real, but they need to be matched by clinical depth to move beyond the immediate neighbourhood.
What Tanlink and the government appear to understand is that the marketing infrastructure needs to precede or at minimum accompany the clinical infrastructure — that waiting until facilities are fully ready before promoting them is a losing strategy in a competitive regional market. The expo was, in that sense, a deliberate move to claim the narrative while the underlying system continues to be built.