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UMONS Humanitarian ENT & AI Mission in Rural Kenya

Empowering Rural Healthcare with ENT Expertise and Artificial Intelligence

Lack of ENT specialists and diagnostic tools remains a major challenge for healthcare in remote Sub-Saharan Africa. In January 2024, Professor Jérôme Lechien (UMONS) launched a humanitarian and research mission in Iten, Kenya, a mountainous town of 60,000 people with no ENT department and poor medical infrastructure.
The local hospital had no fiberoptic, no otoacoustic screening, no ORL surgeon, and was served by general practitioners with minimal ENT training.

The 2024 mission

In response, a multidisciplinary Belgian team, composed of ENT specialists, anesthesiologists and dental surgeons, volunteered to:

  • Perform surgical procedures (tonsillectomies, adenoidectomies, thyroidectomies)
  • Train local doctors and staff in ENT diagnosis and treatment
  • Collect and deliver surgical equipment and basic materials
  • Evaluate the added value of AI-powered decision tools in this resource-limited setting

A Novel AI Approach

During this mission, Prof. Lechien conducted the first field-based evaluation of large language models (LLMs), like ChatGPT-4o, to support diagnosis and management of ENT conditions by non-specialist physicians.
Published in Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery (June 2025), the results show that AI can improve diagnostic accuracy, assist in treatment planning and suggest triage/referral decisions based on contextualized local constraints.1

What’s Next? – 2025-2026 Mission Goals

The upcoming mission, planned for December 2025 to January 2026, will build on the previous experience with a more focused approach to surgery, training, and technology. In rural Kenya, general practitioners work without specialists or proper diagnostic tools. Deciding whether to refer a patient to a larger hospital can mean the difference between recovery and lasting disability. Delayed or missed referrals often lead to severe consequences, while unnecessary referrals burden the system.
To address this, we aim to implement AI tools adapted to low-resource settings. These systems, based on large language models, assist doctors in making safer decisions using only symptoms and basic clinical findings, without requiring advanced tests.
The mission will also include surgical care, staff training, and data collection on ENT disease patterns. In parallel, we will coordinate the donation and transport of essential materials to help strengthen care beyond our time on site.

Join & Support Us

Help us strengthen surgical and diagnostic capacities in underserved regions.
By combining humanitarian medical care with ethical, accessible AI, we believe in building sustainable solutions that bridge global healthcare inequalities.

Initiative led by the University of Mons – Department of Surgery
Coordinated by Prof. Jérôme Lechien, MD, PhD, FACS
In collaboration with local stakeholders in Iten County Hospital, Kenya
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

1 Lechien JR. Expanding the Capacity of General Practitioners in Sub-Saharan Africa With Artificial Intelligence. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2025 Jun 17. doi: 10.1002/ohn.1335. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 40525718.