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LatinNews Daily - 15 April 2026
In brief: El Salvador rolls out new phase of AI-assisted telemedicine project
*El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has unveiled the second phase of DoctorSV, an artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted digital healthcare project first launched in November 2025 by his government, along with the Latin American development bank (CAF) and US tech giant Google. According to a CAF press release issued in November, the initiative, whereby the government entered a strategic alliance with Google to integrate AI to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of non-emergency conditions in primary care, seeks to make “comprehensive medical care available to the entire population, reducing waiting times and eliminating the need to travel” through a free mobile app (DoctorSV) which patients download. Under the second phase, the app adds the option to report chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, kidney disease, or asthma. A social media post by El Salvador’s presidency outlining the launch of the second phase cites Guy Nae, the director of Google Cloud for the public sector in Latin America, as saying 1.1m Salvadoreans enrolled in stage one, while 1.5m consultations were conducted. It adds that 400 establishments, such as pharmacies, are affiliated with the scheme and responding to demand, while the effectiveness (accuracy in diagnosis and treatment) stands at 93%. In September 2023 El Salvador’s congress approved a legislative initiative designating Google as a strategic partner of the Salvadorean government, with the tech company establishing operations in El Salvador to “help the digital transformation, modernise government services and improve various sectors such as healthcare and education”. In December Bukele announced a partnership with artificial intelligence firm xAI to use AI tools in public schools throughout the country.
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